10 of the best harbours

Lynmouth, North Devon “The most delightful place for a landscape painter this country can boast,” in the view of Thomas Gainsborough who, like Shelley, brought his new bride here. The village curves along a steep wooded shore where the East and West Lyn rivers converge. Despite a flooding catastrophe in 1952, which killed 34 people and destroyed 100 buildings, the place preserves its ancient good looks, and fishing boats still bob in the harbour. A funicular railway hoists visitors up the side of the gorge to the neighbouring village of Lynton Photograph: Rick Strange / Alamy/Alamy

Aberaeron, Ceredigion Two centuries ago a local clergyman had the notion of building a port at the mouth of the Aeron river. The result was Wales’s first planned town, a gracious Regency affair heavily influenced by John Nash, and so well preserved that it has featured on postage stamps. One in four of the pastel-shaded buildings is now listed as being of special architectural or historical interest. The coming of the railways scuppered its commercial shipping, so the harbour is now mainly used for pleasure boating Photograph: The Photolibrary Wales / Alamy/Alamy

Blakeney, Norfolk Silt halted its career as a port early last century and now only small boats can navigate the creeks that twist through the mud banks. But the flint cottages that slope down the hill still overlook a well-filled harbour and one of the church’s two towers, built as a beacon, still guides craft into a safe berth. The harbour and the marshy wilderness around the village, where seals often bask, is owned by the National Trust and is one of the largest expanses of unspoilt coastline in Europe Photograph: Jim Laws / Alamy/Alamy

Clovelly, North Devon Private ownership is the secret of Clovelly’s perfections. It has belonged to the same family since 1738 and the aim is to entrap it in its 19th-century heyday. Cars are banned and the cobbled street plunging down past 16th-century cottages to the harbour is cluttered only with flower tubs and idyll-seekers all of whom must pay a fee to step back in time. Holiday cottages are banned, tourist tat is confined to the visitor centre at the top, and because of the alarming cobbled gradient, residents keep sledges outside their front doors to transport the weekly shop Photograph: Adam Burton/Getty Images/Robert Harding Worl

Crail, Fife Crail is possibly the prettiest of a string of fetching fishing ports along the East Neuk. Red stone and whitewashed cottages tumble down the hill from the high street to the harbour where a small fishing industry still survives and lobster pots clutter the quayside. The local shellfish are highly prized because of the unusually clean waters. The medieval marketplace was once the largest in Europe and many of the 17th- and 18th-century merchants’ houses have been restored by the National Trust for Scotland Photograph: Alistair Dick / Alamy/Alamy

Plockton, Ross-shire Plockton’s rarefied charms belie a sorrowful history. Refugees embarked for new lands here during the Highland clearances, then the local landowner offered the displaced the chance to settle in a new fishing port he had built. Herring and crafting sustained them until the herring migrated and the potato crops failed and Plockton became known as the “village of the poor”. Now the whitewashed cottages, the mountains, palm trees and scattering of outlying islands attract artists, tourists and film crews (Hamish Macbeth was shot here) Photograph: Alamy

Portloe, Cornwall John Betjeman rated this as one of the “least spoiled and most impressive” of Cornwall’s fishing villages. Its snug berth in an inlet between steep cliffs has kept 20th-century intrusions at bay, and the cluster of white cottages behind the harbour look much as they would have done 200 years ago when it was a pilchard-fishing port. Today, three boats still fish for crab and lobster. Film-makers are regularly seduced by its quaintness and it has doubled up as a Mediterranean (Forever England) and an Irish village (Irish Jam) in its cinematic career Photograph: Travel Ink/Getty Images/Gallo Images

Lower Solva, Pembrokeshire Bunched at the bottom of a ravine in the Pembrokeshire national park is this community of colour-washed houses facing a dramatic harbour. Geography dictates that modern sprawl must happen at the top of the cliffs in Upper Solva, so it has survived the centuries unscathed by progress. Medieval lime kilns still line part of the harbour, which is now a hub for pleasure craft Photograph: Patrick Ward/ Patrick Ward/CORBIS

Staithes, North Yorkshire Captain Cook gained his sea legs while working as a grocer’s apprentice in this town, once one of the busiest English fishing ports in the North Sea. Now, only one working fishing boat survives. The quaintness of the old core, cramped between two cliffs, inspired a group of English impressionists, including Dame Laura Knight, who set up her studios here. These days, more than half the houses in the old town are owned by urban weekenders, but traditions linger, and local women still wear Staithes bonnets during the annual nightgown parade Photograph: Alamy

Polperro, Cornwall A higgle-pigglement of multi-coloured fisher­men’s cottages packed into a ravine. The twisting cobbled lanes are car-free – visitors must park outside the old village and cruise in on shanks’s pony or milk floats disguised as trams. A dozen fishing boats still return at night to the harbour, although tourism has replaced the old industry of pilchard processing Photograph: Jon Arnold Images Ltd / Alamy/Alamy