A Guide To Visiting West Mersea Beach, Essex

Mersea Island is located just outside of Colchester, in the estuary of the River Blackwater. Although, it’s an ‘island’ it’s connected to the mainland via a road called ‘The Strood’. For about a week every month, at high tide, the water covers the road and turns it into a proper island twice a day. During this time, the road is blocked off for around 1hr 30. On the west of the island is West Mersea Beach. A large beach with hundreds of colourful beach huts!

West Mersea Beach

The beach is a mix of sand, stones and shells. It can be a bit sharp on your feet but it’s not awful. Beach/water shoes may be a good idea just to make it a little more comfortable! The sea is also very shallow, making it good for little kids as it doesn’t suddenly get deep. People were walking out a long way and it was still only waist-deep!

During my visit, it was very popular with stand up paddle boarders and kayakers because of the calm shallow water.

Even on a busy day, you can find a quiet empty spot. Everyone tends to choose to stay in the area close to the car park, for convenience. But if you go onto the beach and turn left, and walk to the far end of the beach huts, this end is quieter. It seems to be more sandy too!

Parking

The best place to park is at the Victoria Esplanade Car Park. This is a large grassy field very close to the beach. On hot days, the car park does fill up, there are 150 spaces. I arrived at 10 am and it had plenty of space but by the time I left it was completely filled. People were parked all over the place, one had even managed to squeeze into the gap that was between me and the car beside me! As you can imagine, it didn’t leave a lot of room to open doors!

It costs £4 for up to 2 hours, £6.50 up to 4 hours or £8.50 for all-day parking. There are ticket machines which only take coins, or you can pay for parking online via MiPermit.

MiPermit

I’d never used online parking tickets, I didn’t really feel comfortable not having a ticket in a pay and display car park! So I wrote a little not and put it in my window.

MiPermit works on both an app and a web browser. You just put in your car number plate, phone number, the car park you’re parking in, when you want the ticket to start, how long for and then you put in your card details. You can even choose to be notified when you have 1 hour left on the parking ticket!

Facilities

The facilities are actually quite spread out along the beach and not necessarily close to the car park. Next to the car park is a large field, good for picnics or ball games.

There’s a small toilet block on the other side of the road at the far end of the field. Two other toilet blocks can be found to the far right on the car park and more in the middle, both along the main road.

As you approach West Mersea Holiday Park, you’ll come across the Seaview Cafe. The cafe is open for takeaway food and it also has a small beach shop, which has inflatables, buckets and spades, windbreakers, sweets, drinks and ice creams etc.

West Mersea Tide Times

You can find the tide times for West Mersea on this website here. It gives the approximate times up to roughly one week in advance. The main rule of thumb is that if the high tide reaches 5 metres, this is when The Strood will be covered. If it’s under 5m then you should be able to cross with no problem.

It’s best to check the times in advance, just so you don’t end up getting stuck unnecessarily!

When the tide is going out, it obviously then uncovers more of the beach, so visiting at low tide often feels a little more spacious!

Visiting the Island

There are several different caravan and camping sites on Mersea Island. One that gets a lot of good reviews is Waldegrave Holiday Park. West Mersea Holiday Park also offers glamping pods!

I visited Essex Outdoors several times while I was at school. It’s mainly aimed at schools, groups and businesses for team building activities. But it’s sometimes open for ‘pay and play’, where families and individuals can try some of the activities too.

Closer to the West Mersea Marine, there are several different seafood restaurants. You won’t find a beach in this area though but there is a small car park.

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