Mudeford Spit and Hengistbury Head – The Real Location Behind The Beach Hut Murders
Mudeford Spit is a real sandbank at the mouth of Christchurch Harbour, on the eastern tip of Dorset next to Hengistbury Head, and its famous beach huts are the setting for The Beach Hut Murders, book 12 in my Dorset Crime series. It's one of my favourite parts of Dorset, and here's why.
Where is Mudeford Spit?
Mudeford Spit is right on the eastern tip of Dorset, practically in Hampshire, and affords an excellent view of the Isle of Wight. I once got up at silly o'clock to be there at dawn and watch the sunrise over the Needles.
Originally, I was going to set the book at Hengistbury Head, which has a nature reserve reputedly boasting natterjack toads, not that I've ever seen them. Hengistbury Head also has magnificent cliffs looking out towards the Isle of Wight and some fantastic places where you could – fictionally, of course – dump a body.
But then, when I started doing location research and walking around the area, I realised that Mudeford Spit was an even better spot.
Mudeford Spit is a unique place. It's a sandbank sticking out northwards at the mouth of Christchurch Harbour. It's not actually in Mudeford but is separated from it by the harbour, and the only way across is via a small boat that only does the trip when the weather's good enough.
What are the Mudeford Spit beach huts like?
What's interesting about Mudeford Spit is its beach huts. These beach huts are infamous around Dorset and Hampshire. They're much larger than the average beach hut, with proper kitchenettes, comfortable seating and sleeping platforms. They're in an amazing spot, with the sea on one side and the harbour on the other.
When I visited one of the beach huts and got chatting to its owner, I discovered that she swims either in the sea or in Christchurch Harbour at all times of year, because it's so sheltered. That's quite different from Southbourne Beach, where I often swim.
The idyllic location means that these beach huts are very expensive. They've been known to sell for half a million, and they don't even have plumbing or electricity. Many of the owners set up solar panels, and have gas stoves and water butts. But when it comes to bathrooms, you have to use the nasty concrete toilet blocks scattered through the beach huts.
The toilet blocks each include a number of public cubicles plus one that's only accessible by a key held by residents. But that doesn't make them posh. These are bog-standard 20th-century concrete toilet blocks, the kind of thing that remind me of the outdoor toilets at my primary school. I guess you get used to it when the upside is that amazing location.
How do you get to Mudeford Spit?
The other thing that's interesting about the Mudeford beach huts is that they're cut off. From the north, you can only access them by boat, and from the south-west, you get to them through the Hengistbury Head nature reserve. Many owners use bikes. You can take a car in for deliveries and loading, but you can't park it anywhere. You'd have to take it back to the car park by the Hiker Café at the entrance to Hengistbury Head nature reserve.
The land train is how you get to Mudeford Spit if you don't fancy walking and you haven't got a bike. It only runs at certain times of year, and given how far it takes you, it's pretty expensive, but it's fun to do it once. Otherwise, the walk is nicer. You can walk past ponds, through woods, along beaches and over cliffs, depending on which route you choose.
In fact, you can spend so long exploring Hengistbury Head itself that by the time you've got to Mudeford Spit, it's time to turn around and go home again, which is something that's happened to me many times. One of these days maybe I'll get myself a bike so that I can cycle up there without getting waylaid in the nature reserve.
A closed community
The fact that this group of beach huts is cut off gives it a sense of being a closed community. When I was doing the research for The Beach Hut Murders, it put me in mind of the research that I did for Dorset Crime book 3, The Island Murders, on Brownsea Island.
Brownsea Island is much larger than Mudeford Spit, with a smaller but more permanent population. The people living on Brownsea Island are National Trust or John Lewis employees, and they're there because of their work. The people staying overnight in the Mudeford Spit beach huts are there because they're on holiday, or, as in the case of some of the people I spoke to, they're locals who enjoy a bit of a getaway.
This means that it's a tight-knit community, the kind of place where, if a murder took place, news would spread fast.
Southbourne
The closest town by land to Mudeford Spit is Southbourne, which is the easternmost suburb of Bournemouth. I know Southbourne well. It's where I'm based when I'm in Dorset, and it was somewhere I wanted to write about.
Much of Southbourne didn't exist eighty or so years ago, and many of the houses were built in the mid-20th century. One of the book's characters moved in at that time and has never left.
Unlike much of Bournemouth, there seems to be a higher proportion of people living there, as compared to holiday homes. Sure, there are holiday homes, but there are no hotels and a real sense of community all year round.
If you go to Southbourne beach on a Saturday morning out of season, you'll find people bumping into friends, going for a run, letting their kids play on the sand, and it feels like this is what they do every Saturday morning. They've not just come down to Bournemouth for the weekend. It's part of what makes Southbourne special. (It's also somewhere I like to go to and write.)
How does The Beach Hut Murders begin?
In The Beach Hut Murders, I wanted to explore those two communities. The book opens with a body being found underneath one of those nasty concrete toilet blocks on Mudeford Spit, a toilet block that's understandably being knocked down and replaced with something a bit more modern. Sadly, in real life it doesn't look like the council have any plans to do that, but I can dream.
The focus then broadens to include Southbourne and a cast of characters who live within spitting distance of Hengistbury Head. In fact, they can see the headland from their front door. And of course, this makes things awkward for DCI Lesley Clarke and her team.
Something I enjoy doing is making a crime scene tricky for Lesley to get to, and Mudeford Spit is about as tricky as it gets. Obviously, the police are allowed to drive all the way to the crime scene without having to use a bike like the beach hut owners, but even so, it's quite a drive from Dorset Police HQ at Winfrith, and it gave me the opportunity to include some local details, like the spot where the land train turns around, where two of Lesley's detectives have some challenges getting their car through.
Can you visit Mudeford Spit and Hengistbury Head?
Yes. If you've never visited, I strongly recommend it. It's beautiful, and given how close it is to Bournemouth town centre, it is really quite secluded. Although maybe don't go in February half term, which is when this book takes place.
Because there's not much to do around Bournemouth in February half term. And so when I visited at that time of year for book research, it seemed that every child in the area had come to terrorise those poor natterjack toads.
I loved writing about this area (I go there for pleasure at all times of year), and I hope you enjoy reading about it as much.
Read more
New to the series? Start with The Corfe Castle Murders, or get the prequel novella The Ballard Down Murder free.
