The Big Beach Build at Barry Island

Katherine PeachCommunity, Creative, Featured, Kids

On Monday 23rd August, Pippa and Katherine headed down to Barry Island beach to see the first ever sandcastle competition. This free to enter competition had over 78 competitors taking part, creating some jaw-dropping sandcastles. We saw moats, fantasy land creations and shell-covered masterpieces.

Starting at 11am until 3pm, family and friends gathered on the island to take part. Having spent the last year and a half trapped inside, it was a wonderful sight to see so many people enjoying the simple pleasures of building sandcastles. We spoke to the amazing people running the event, The Beach Academy; “This was the first event held at Barry Island since the start of lockdown in 2020. We wanted to do something that was community orientated. It’s so lovely to see how many people are getting involved and, more importantly, having fun in this summer weather.”

Here is a collection of just some of the fantastic sandcastle creations:

Here at Penarth View, we’d like to congratulate the winners of The Big Beach Build; The Sand Masters

We’d also like to give our own personal favourites of the day…

Although all those who took part deserve a round of applause, here are our teams personal favourites from the day.

Katherine-(Writer and Sales Associate); “Picking my favourite was very difficult! I can’t imagine how the judges felt but the team that had the edge was the Neverland themed sandcastle. The thought and effort that went into it was amazing and with Peter Pan being one of my favourite children’s novels, it had to be them.”

Pippa-Marie- (Journalist); “The ‘Save the Turtles’ themed sandcastle had to be my favourite. I loved the concept and was very on brand for the current climate. But it was very hard to pick a favourite, I loved walking around and getting to see all the effort that was put into each and every one.”

Well done to everyone who took part, and of course, a special thank you to the Beach Academy for organising such a great event and we look forward to it again next year (we might even take part ourselves)!