Colourful beach hut at the East Beach Hopeman, Moray Firth. Grampian. SCO 9159.
Hopeman has two large sandy beaches split by the man-made harbour. The West Beach is the smaller. The East Beach is surrounded by large, grassy sand dunes, and has colourful beach huts and large rocky areas with excellent rockpools (the one at the eastern edge is known as Daisy Rock). Further to the east is a smaller hidden beach with stones and large rock formations. There are quite a few birds to be found on the beach, such as the herring gull, the great black-backed gull, the black-headed gull, the curlew and the oystercatcher. The areas of gorse heathland surrounding the eastern beaches are home to the whitethroat, the robin and the yellowhammer. Now and then bottlenose dolphins turn up in the Moray Firth off the coast of Hopeman, from where they can easily be seen. Hopeman Harbour is in between the East and West Beaches. It is small and now mainly houses pleasure vessels. In the past it was used for landing fish caught by fishermen from the village. Beach Huts had evolved from the wheeled bathing machines used by Victorians to preserve their modesty. George III used a bathing machine at Mudeford in 1801, while Queen Victoria installed one at Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight in the 1840s. In the early 20th century, beach huts were regarded as "holiday homes for the toiling classes", but in the 1930s their image revived, George V and Queen Mary spent the day at a beach hut in Sussex, and other owners have included the Spencer family and Laurence Olivier. During World War II all UK beaches were closed, the reopening in the late 1940s and 1950s led to resurgence of the British beach holiday and the heyday of the Beach Hut. While many beach huts were former fishermen's huts, boatsheds or converted bathing machines some of the earliest purpose built beach huts in the UK were erected at Bournemouth, either side of Bournemouth Pier in 1909.
Size: 4034px × 6062px
Location: Hopeman, Moray Firth, Morayshire. Grampian Region. Scotland.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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