Bude

Geography

Bude lies just west of Stratton and north of Widemouth Bay and is located along the A3073 road off the A39 road. The section of the A39 running through Bude is known as the Atlantic Highway. A section of Bude's coast, between Compass Cove to the south and Furzey Cove to the north, is a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) noted for its geological and biological interest. Part of the land designated as the Bude Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest is owned by the National Trust. Carboniferous sandstone cliffs surround Bude. During the Variscan Orogeny the strata were heavily faulted and folded. As the sands and cliffs around Bude contain calcium carbonate (a natural fertiliser), farmers used to take sand from the beach, for spreading on their fields. The cliffs around Bude are the only ones in Cornwall that are made of Carboniferous sandstone, as most of the Cornish coast is formed of Devonian slate, granite and Precambrian metamorphic rocks. The aftermath of the wreck of the Bencoolen was described by Robert Stephen Hawker in letters which were published in Hawker's Poetical Works (1879). Like the rest of the British Isles and South West England, Bude experiences a maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. Temperature extremes at the Met Office weather station at Bude range from during February 1969 to in July 2022. The Met Office recorded Bude as the sunniest place in the United Kingdom during the summer of 2013 with 783 hours of sunlight.