Abersoch beach huts

button_lang_welshAbersoch beach huts

Some of the huts above the high-water mark at Abersoch are among the most expensive properties in Wales, per square metre of floor. One sold for £160,000 in 2017. If you’re walking the Wales Coast Path, a short detour through the beach car park brings you to the huts.

Their predecessors were bathing machines or bathing vans – cabins on wheels. They were typically hired by well-heeled women and elderly people, who would sit in the machines to be hauled to and from the sea. They changed into bathing costumes before descending the steps into the water, sometimes with the help of burly men known as “dippers”. In October 1918 floods at Abersoch washed away c.30 bathing vans belonging to William Williams.

Static beach huts were installed at Abersoch later in the 20th century. Some of the huts at the beach’s north end were possibly brought here after being sold as surplus army equipment after the Second World War.

Some of the huts have sold for more than the price of houses, despite having no running water or electricity supply and being subject to rules which prevent overnight occupation. In 2008 there was astonishment when one hut sold for £70,000, but eight years later another sold for £157,000.

The record was broken again in 2017 when a hut sold for £160,000, or £16,000 per square metre of interior floor. Average property prices per square metre in 2016 were £1,378 in Gwynedd and £2,161 in Cardiff (the highest average price in Wales).

To understand the huts’ attraction, consider that this is one of only a few beaches in Wales where the sea is east of the land. The wind usually comes from the west, so people sitting inside or just outside their beach huts can enjoy the sea view in shelter and eat picnic food free of sand!

Postcode: LL53 7EY    View Location Map

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