A beautiful village has ranked as the best seaside town or village in the UK for five years in a row, and now thousands of tourists descend on the spot every year. Local businesses say it’s “totally a positive”, despite others grumbling.
Bamburgh in Northumberland topped Which?’s list of the UK’s seaside destinations again in 2025, beating 117 other towns and villages to get the highest destination score of 84%. It was the only place to get full five-star ratings for its beaches, seafront, scenery, and peace and quiet.
Visitors love the spectacular views of Bamburgh Castle, which stands on a rocky outcrop above the miles of sandy beach. There’s not much else to the little village: a handful of pubs and cafes, a couple of restaurants, some shops, and a museum. The village can see up to 150,000 visitors a year, over 350 times the normal population of just 400. But local businesses say this is a positive. Leonie, general manager at the Castle Inn, told the Express that there’s “definitely” been an increase in tourism over the last few years, adding: “These ‘best’ titles have brought more people in.
“We’ve found recently that we don’t have a summer season; we’re busier for a much longer period. Like now, the school holidays are over, but we’re still busy and that’ll last into October, which is obviously great for us.”
She said that while there will always be “locals grumbling”, tourism is “totally a positive”. Leonie said: “Without tourists, we’d have no business, we couldn’t keep going.
“It’s brought more business to everyone. There’s a new cafe in the Walled Garden, and you could look at it as a competition, but it takes pressure off us a bit, spreads the business out. It also means seasonal businesses can stay open longer.”
Ruth, who runs a mobile tea-and-coffee van, said she can be “non-stop busy” from 9.45am to 4.30pm. “It’s nice though,” she added. “It generates income for everybody.” She doesn’t feel the village has been spoiled, saying: “It’s still a quaint village – that’s the attraction.”
But not all are pleased about the increase in visitors. Blacketts owner, Sue, told the Chronicle that the boom in visitors isn’t without its complications. She said Bamburgh is “not really set up to deal with this number of people, in a number of ways,” noting parking and internet access.
She added: “We really need to have some sort of huge injection of cash from a Government body to meet the demand, not just for Bamburgh but right the way down the coast.”
Leonie at the Castle Inn said the only negative would be that there “aren’t as many locals around”, adding: “We used to be open to the little hours, but there’re not as many locals now. Maybe they’re put off by how busy it is, or like their own space.”
She said there’s a concern that the village could be overtaken by second homes, like nearby Beadnell, where her grandma lives: “She says she has no neighbours in the winter, cause they’re all second or holiday homes. Bamburgh could be heading that way, houses come up for sale, and they’re really expensive, maybe people can’t afford it.”
After dominating the best seaside destination rankings for years, Bamburgh’s popularity looks set to rise even further in the coming years.