All swimming spots › South Hams, England
Can I swim at Bigbury-on-Sea South?
South Hams, England · Estuary
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Before you get in
A red flag means do not go in, whatever this page says.
If you get into trouble, float on your back until the cold shock passes. Full advice below.
In an emergency call 999 and ask for the Coastguard, or 112 in the Republic of Ireland.
Water quality today
The last fortnight
What this verdict covers
Independent site, not an official one. This verdict is about water quality. It does not tell you whether the water is safe to get into today.
How it has been rated
The annual classification for 2021 to 2025. Each one is calculated from samples taken over up to four bathing seasons, so these overlap and none of them describes today.
Every sample, 2023 to 2026
45 samples, 2023 to 2026. The highest E. coli count in them was 160 per 100ml, on 12 June 2025; the standard for Excellent is 250 or below and for Good 500 or below.
One bar for each sample, oldest on the left. The taller the bar, the more E. coli that bottle held.
The scale is the same on every beach on this site, which is why a clean beach looks flat — the bars are measured against the standard rather than against that beach’s own worst day. Hover or tap a bar for that day’s figures. A single count over a line is not a failed beach. The classification is worked out as the 90th and 95th percentile of four years of samples, so one bad morning does not decide it — and one good morning does not either.
What these bacteria mean for you
Neither one is what makes people ill by itself. They are markers: they live in the gut, so finding them means sewage or animal waste has reached the water, and whatever else came with it is likely there too.
The usual way to catch something is swallowing the water, and the usual result is a stomach upset. Ear, eye, chest and skin infections are the other common ones. Putting your head under and swimming with an open cut both raise the odds.
The riskiest time is the day or two after heavy rain, when storm overflows discharge and rain washes off farmland — including at beaches rated Excellent for the rest of the season. That is the whole reason this page shows you rainfall and discharges alongside the grade.
Bigbury-on-Sea South was rated Excellent for 2025, the highest of the four grades in the Bathing Water Regulations. That grade comes from bacterial samples taken over several seasons, so it describes the beach's record rather than the water on any given day.
The Environment Agency issues a pollution risk forecast each morning during the bathing season for nearly every bathing water in England, and the water company publishes the status of its storm overflows every few minutes.
The regulator records this as a bathing water whose quality can be affected by heavy rain, which is why rainfall in the last 24 hours is shown above.
The rest of its file
What the regulator holds for this place. None of it describes the water today.
- Water
- Estuary
- Area
- South Hams, England
- Monitored outfalls within 5km
- 10 (nearest 0.4km)
- Affected by heavy rain
- Yes, per the regulator
Sea, wind, tide and weather
The sea and the weather here today and for the week ahead. Not the water quality verdict above.
Today
Rain, the week behind and ahead
The weather for the week ahead
Lifeguards
The RNLI has a lifeguard unit at this beach.
They do not patrol all year, and this page cannot tell you whether anyone is on duty today. RNLI page for this beach.
Where it is, and what discharges near it
Directions to this bathing water
That is the Environment Agency’s sampling point, which is at the water rather than at a car park. Your maps app will take you to the nearest road it can reach.
The nearest mapped car park is about 100m away in a straight line. That is not a walking distance: OpenStreetMap knows where the car park is and nothing about the path, which may be longer, steeper or not there at all. It is tagged as charging a fee, as the mappers wrote it.
What is mapped at this beach
- Toilets about 70m away — free, step-free
- Venus Cafe about 100m away
Straight-line distances from OpenStreetMap, not walking distances, and only what volunteers have mapped — something missing here may still be there.
What the regulator says about this beach
From the Environment Agency’s published bathing water profile for 2026. It describes the place and its catchment, not today’s water.
The beach itself
Bigbury-on-Sea South is close to the mouth of the River Avon on the south coast of Devon. The beach is approximately 450 metres wide, and at low tide Burgh Island is accessible across the causeway.
What drains into it
The catchment surrounding Bigbury-on-Sea South is approximately 15,000 hectares. There is a tiny stream approximately 200m long which enters the sea at the eastern end of the beach. The River Avon and its major tributaries (the Bala Brook and the Glaze Brook) rise on south Dartmoor. The Avon flows for 37 kilometres through the Avon Reservoir, South Brent, Avonwick, Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford before reaching the estuary mouth at Bantham and Bigbury on Sea. As the river flows from the open moorland, it has created steep sided valleys with small enclosures mostly used for small scale livestock farming. The steep catchment means rain runs off rapidly into the many small streams that feed the River Avon. The estuary of the Avon is tidal up as far as the weir at Aveton Gifford, and like the other estuaries of South Devon, the original deep river valley has been flooded by sea level rise, to create a wide expanse of water. The catchment is mostly agricultural, with more than 50 farms.
More from the profile
Where the sewage works discharges
The outfall from Bigbury and Challaborough STW discharges to the sea at Warren Point 400m northwest of the Environment Agency monitoring point. This discharge is designed to protect bathing water quality.
What has been done about it
The South West Water sewage treatment scheme for Bigbury and Challaborough, which provides secondary treatment, was completed in 1995. Following concerns over shellfish quality in the Avon Estuary, South West Water installed an ultraviolet (UV) disinfection plant at Aveton Gifford sewage treatment works (STW) in 1998. This will have improved water quality in the estuary near the bathing water. Aveton Gifford STW also received increased storm storage in February 2002. Two emergency overflows at Bigbury and Warren Point were improved by April 2003, and the combined sewer overflow/emergency overflow at Challaborough pumping station was completed in 2004, and storm overflow event duration monitoring (EDM) was installed at these sites by December 2011. Further improvements to protect shellfish water quality are scheduled to be completed at Brent Mill CSO by June 2021.
What the samplers see on the sand
Environment Agency samplers make observations of litter present on the beach at every visit, this includes assessments of sewage debris, litter and tar. At Bigbury-on-Sea South for the four year (2022-2025) assessment period where data is available, sewage debris was not noted at this site. Litter was not assessed as being sufficient to be objectionable, but was observed as being present on 44% of visits. Tarry residue was not noted at this site.
The council's part
The urban area of Bigbury-on-Sea immediately behind the beach is served by a combined (surface and sewer) system. There are no outfalls from the system onto the beach.
Published by the Environment Agency under the Open Government Licence. The full profile carries more, including sections repeated for every beach that are not reproduced here.
Other swimming spots nearby
The closest bathing waters on the regulators’ lists, straight-line distance. Each has its own checks and its own verdict.
Check the official source
The regulator’s own page for this bathing water. If it disagrees with this one, believe theirs.
Bigbury-on-Sea South's official page at the Environment Agency · See it on a map
This page is not official. It reads published data and presents it plainly; if a sign at the beach says otherwise, believe the sign.
If you get into trouble
This is the RNLI’s advice, not ours.
Float. Tilt your head back with your ears in the water. Relax and let your breathing settle. Move your hands and legs gently to stay level. Your legs may sink, and that is fine, everyone floats differently. The first shock of cold water passes in less than a minute, so do not try to swim straight away. Once it has passed, call for help or swim to safety.
Caught in a rip current? Do not swim against it, you will only tire yourself out. If you can stand, wade out of it. If the water is too deep to stand, swim parallel to the beach until you are clear of it, then head for shore. Raise your hand and shout for help.
Nobody publishes a rip current forecast for beaches in Britain or Ireland, so this site cannot show you one. The RNLI has one for its own lifeguards. The public does not. Look at the water before you get in, and look for a channel where the waves are not breaking.
In an emergency call 999 and ask for the Coastguard. In the Republic of Ireland call 112 or 999 and ask for the Coast Guard.
Where there are lifeguards, swim between the red and yellow flags. They put those flags where it is safest that day and move them as the sea changes. A red flag means do not go in, whatever this page says. An orange windsock means the wind is blowing offshore and inflatables should stay out of the water. Most places on this site have no lifeguard at all.
This advice is the RNLI’s. Their Float to Live pages are worth two minutes of anyone’s time.
Use this page elsewhere
One sheet of A4 with a QR code to this page, for a clubhouse, a campsite reception, a surf school or a harbour office. The address is printed underneath in words, so it still works for anybody who would rather not scan a code.
Print a sign for Bigbury-on-Sea SouthOr put today’s verdict on your own site.
Put this beach on your own site
A small card showing today’s verdict for Bigbury-on-Sea South, updating itself. Paste this where you want it to appear. It loads nothing of yours and sets no cookies, and it costs your visitors about ten kilobytes, most of it the readings themselves.
Click the box to select it all. There is also a feed for this beach, if you would rather be told than have to look.