Ilfracombe’s Tunnels Beaches closed to public visitors for 2025 due to rock falls

The owner of Ilfracombe’s famous Tunnels Beaches has spoken of their huge regret at having to close the popular destination to the public for 2025 after a dangerous landslide left them with no other choice due to major safety concerns for beachgoers.

Jamie McLintock said a landslide happened at the beach last Wednesday (April 16) in the middle of the day when visitors were on site and the beach had to be evacuated.

The Tunnels shocked North Devon residents with a statement on its Facebook page today (Thursday) saying it would be closed to the public for the rest of this year due to the risk of rock falls at the top of the ‘Ladies Beach’ at the attraction, which was created in Victorian times. The statement said all season ticket holders are to be refunded.

Jamie, who has run the Tunnels with his wife Zoe and their family since they bought it 25 years ago, has been speaking to the Gazette on their difficult decision to close the affected public part of the beach, which does not affect the adjoining ‘Gentlemen’s Beach’ used as part of their wedding venue.

He said with rocks falling from the cliff on two occasions they simply could not take the risk of staff or visitors being injured or worse and after a week of trying to decide what to do, had been left with no option but to close.

He said: “We were open to the public on the Wednesday and around lunchtime rocks came down on the slipway at the top of the Ladies’ Beach. We had people on the beach and we had to evacuate the beach. Our daughter Lottie dealt with it all and people said how good she had been with it.

“It was literally at the top of the Ladies’ Beach, which is where beachgoers go and is high risk. I cordoned it off, but when I went down to check, some more rocks had come down. There is no risk on the rest of the site.

“We have it serviced every year and it is probably the most maintained cliff in the South West, with each section of it mapped, but you can’t legislate for this sort of thing.

He concluded: “We will assess this year and this winter look into what if anything there is to do. We thought it better to close now than mess people around on a day to day basis, but safety comes first, there’s no other option.”

Above: The wedding venue part of Tunnels Beaches is not affected by the cliff falls. Credit: Lewis Clarke

Responding to some negative comments on local social media claiming it was ‘planned’ to help the wedding business, Jamie said: “We are taking a huge financial hit - it’s not a grand plan for the weddings, it’s a safety issue that only affects the Ladies’ Beach.

“We are personally liable. The council closed Capstone for years for the same reason. If we were greedy we would open and not refund tickets – for the sake of the money we would put people at risk.

“We have been open since March as normal and spent a lot of time getting ready for the season and we have just spent two months working on the tidal pool.

“We have had the business for 25 years and spent a lot of time and money to develop it. We put all the effort into it, it’s been developed as a family business, but we could not risk any staff or visitors being hit by rocks.

“Ironically we were planning to put a new café bar, toilets and showers in at the end of September, for no other benefit than for the beachgoers, which has nothing to do with the weddings and would have been purely for beach visitors.

“It does not affect very many staff, the majority are still working in the wedding venue and the few semi-retired staff it has affected have sent lovely messages of support and we communicated with them before making a decision.”

The attraction and the tunnels that give its name were hand-carved from the rock in 1823 and became a hugely popular destination for Victorians visiting Ilfracombe. Due to modesty attitudes at the time, the builders created separate Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s beaches with their own tidal pools. The Bath House was also constructed and an entrance fee was charged from the beginning.

Above: Access to Tunnels Beaches is via several tunnels, carved in the 1820s. Credit: Rob Farrow

The McLintocks bought the business 25 years ago and have developed it into a wedding venue, expanding the business steadily and renovating the old Bath House to create accommodation.

Jamie added: “With the cost of insurance and everything else, if we had not diversified into weddings, that beach would not have been open at all.

“We bring 18,000 to 20,000 wedding guests to Ilfracombe which must be worth millions to the local economy. We completely renovated the Bath House, which is probably one of the most important historic buildings in the town and Runnymede House too.

“We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If we close people complain, if we stayed open there could be a major safety issue.”

At present the extent of the damage to the cliff and what might be done is unknown. Jamie said they were looking into possibly setting up pre-booking guided tour options for history groups, which was a separate market to regular beach visitors, but the cliff itself could not be dealt with immediately.