OS Grid Ref: TR091274 - Landranger: 189 -
Multimap Link
Height ASL: 0 metres - CAA Limit: 60 metres
Location: 1 mile SSW of Dymchurch
Directions: Take the A259 and use the car park directly opposite the sign pointing west to "St Mary's Village".
Parking: Free in Winter; 80p/hr, £2.30/3hr Summer (2005 prices). Park well to the north of the entrance. The only ticket machine is the one opposite the toilets near the entrance.
Facilities: Toilets near car park entrance (not always open). Shops, pubs, etc. in Dymchurch (very touristy). Kiosks on beach near car-park entrance selling usual tatty beach paraphernalia and ice cream.
Accessibility: There is a concrete sea wall between the car park and a wide promenade, from which there are concrete "terraces" with steps at regular intervals, leading to the beach. There are numerous gated gaps, some with wheelchair ramps, in the sea wall. Some of the gates are locked closed in winter.
Flying Area: At low tide the potential flying area is about 1000 × 300m on sand. There are groynes extending about 150m from the terraces, spaced at intervals of about 100m. The beach is "sports-kite flyable" when the tide is lower than about 3m (go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/tides/southeast.shtml and click on "Dungeness" for detailed tide data). There is shingle above Mean High Water, and spring tide highs may come up as high as the sea wall.
Comments: Although the beach is popular, it is sufficiently large that it rarely gets over-crowded and there is usually somewhere to fly. The grockle-density is highest near the car park entrance/kiosks/toilets. Except for a couple of hours either side of low water, the presence of groynes makes it less convivial for "communal" sports kite flying than, say, Camber Sands W of the cafés, but it is excellent for solo visits. The combination of groynes and grockles also makes it entirely unsuitable for PKs, so one is not continually dodging mattress-powered buggies -- they tend to go a bit further west to Greatstone or Camber. It is excellent for sports-kite flying when the wind is from N clockwise to SSW (i.e. preferable to Camber when the wind is between N and W). Avoid the area S of the car-park entrance: there is a sluice outflow in/near which you probably don't want to land a kite.