Portreath Beach is a gently shelving sandy beach on Cornwall’s north coast. The bay at Portreath has high cliffs and a small working harbour. Portreath Beach has seasonal dog restrictions in that it does not allow dogs on the beach between 10 am and 6 pm in the peak season from 1st July to 31st August.
The beach at low tide is a large, flat sandy beach, but when the tide comes in, the beach is split into two with a small cove to the west and the main area in front of the car park. You can also find some low-tide tidal pools, the largest is to the side of the harbour wall.
Facilities at Portreath Beach include car parking, toilets, ramp access, seasonal lifeguards, a beach cafe, pubs, and shops, including surf hire and the Portreath Surf Life Saving Club.
Portreath Harbour has a lot of historical interest as it exported copper and imported coal to support the Cornish copper mines and included some shipbuilding. Today, you can still see where the railway went out of the valley and the white harbour lookouts, which signalled to ships that they could enter the harbour. The lookout was also known as the Deadman’s Hut, as it was used as a temporary morgue to store bodies after accidents.
