Sandcastles - How To Build Them

Years ago when I was editor-at-large of the Western Morning News I was asked to go to Croyde Beach to report on a massive sandcastle competition. Given that this lockdown winter has gone on too long I thought it would be a jolly subject to put here on the website - so this is the video I made and the report I wrote…

I hasten to add that I realise my friend Tim Bannerman is the true master of this art and you can read his sandcastle treatise elsewhere on this site at https://www.martinhespfoodandtravel.com/hespfoodandtravelhome/tim-bannerman-makes-sandcastles?rq=sandcastle

Sand: loose grains that fall apart. Castle: a building of strength. Conundrum: why is it that people are obsessed by the mad idea of forming the latter out of the former?

No one knows why the British are so crazy about sandcastles - but we do know that a competition to see who can build the best is one of the most popular annual events to take place on the West Country coast.  

And tomorrow morning the National Sandcastle Competition will get underway on Croyde beach where as many as 10,000 people will gather to admire the weird, wonderful and ephemeral sand creations.

Lacking a specialist sandcastle competition correspondent, the Western Morning News sent me along yesterday to get tips by the bucket-and-spade load from a world-beating team. 

Staff from North Devon Homes have won the competition not once, but twice, and this year -as well as entering two teams - they’ve taken over organising the event which raises funds for the North Devon Hospice.

Here are the successful-sandcastle-secrets I learned... 

Secret Weapon No1: take a plant sprayer full of water. Nothing glues sand together like water (unless you’re a cheat and use concrete, which is against both the rules and the spirit of sandcastle building).

“A good sandcastle does need wet sand,” I was told by Clare Fallow, one of the key pros in the North Devon Homes team. “We do use spray-bottles to keep the sand wet, especially if it’s a hot day. The spray really helps with features like eyes and ears and things like that which can dry out and blow away.”

Secret Weapon No2: take plenty of tools to help you shape and smooth surfaces of your sandcastle.

“We also bring professional plasterer’s floats and other tools to help us with the details we’re going to make,” said Clare, whose proper job is performance improvement manager with North Devon Homes.

“We’ve even got a special trowel to make the wrinkles on the elephant we will be doing, for example. The secret of success is in the detail - making your sandcastle lifelike,” said Clare as we went to work on a practice hippopotamus.

“A hippopotamus?” I hear readers screech. “Why make hippos instead of castellations, turrets and moats?”

“We don’t tend to get many actual castles in the competition,” shrugged Clare. “In fact, I don’t know we’ve had any - it tends to be all sorts.”

Back to work forming the aforementioned eight foot long hippopotamus...

“So, with this hippo the next thing we need to do is get the ripples of the water and we’ve got a special tool for that. We also need to get the rolls of fat on the back of its neck - make it as lifelike as you can,” Clare instructed me. 

Secret Weapon No3: plan exactly what sort of “sandcastle” you are going to make on a grid. 

“You have to go for something that’s not too high off the ground that you can do in three hours,” Clare advises. “In the competition you have a seven-metre-by-seven pitch - so we draw that into a grid and plot that. When we come down on the day we know exactly where our design is going to go. 

“We’ve had one practice and seen which people are good at what - so we’ve got two guys who are good at the digging. They know where they have to start and where they have to stockpile the sand and so on...”

Michelle West is one of the competition organisers and she explained that North Devon Homes had taken over running the event on behalf of the North Devon Hospice which receives all funds raised.   

“It’s not too late to enter because we’re taking entries on the day - and we are having a junior section so children can sign up and join in the fun as well,” she told me as our huge hippo slowly came to life in the sand. 

“The children’s event is free to enter but the main competition is £12 per person - and teams should have a maximum of six.”