The car park overlooking the sea at Gullane Bents on East Lothian’s coast is always busy, even on a bone-chillingly cold autumn day. This has long been a popular place for a day out. The sandy beach is wide and welcoming, providing an ideal location for picnics and sunbathing in the summer and windsurfing in the autumn. Even during the more bracing months of the year, walkers – and their dogs – love it here.
In the 1930s, people would come to this beach by the charabanc load. Photographs from that time show the start of the erosion on the 12-metre-high foredune as people clambered over it to get to the beach, and further erosion caused by beach huts dug into the seaward face of the dunes.
But by far the
