UK beach resorts are having a major resurgence. Stylist’s editor-in-chief Lisa Smosarski and deputy editor Susan Riley visit three of the best places in Britain to brandish your bucket and spade

Watch dolphins play on The English Riviera

Heading back to my room at The Cary Arms, Devon, I instagrammed the view from my balcony – sunset, tranquil water, you know the drill. Within minutes someone commented: “THIS IS NOT IN BRITAIN.” Oh, ye of little faith, because Babbacombe Bay is one of Britain’s gems on a summer afternoon. Gulls swooping, jet skis zipping, boats bobbing and locals fishing. It’s scenes like this that make people move to the West Country – and even when you’re only there for the weekend, the contentment is catching.

Lording over this idyllic scene is The Cary Arms, an inn with rooms, a huge outdoor terrace and, as if to prove its ranking in the happiness charts, a bell you can ring when “dolphins come to play”. Since 2009 it’s had ten rooms (and latterly, three cottages), but beach huts and suites have just opened, taking the luxury up a notch.

Our duplex beach hut is like a quaint birdhouse on steroids: white clapperboard, blue roof and a porthole through which you can see the English Channel from your bed. A decked balcony out front gives you a bird’s-eye view of the comings and goings across the bay, with Oddicombe beach opposite, Babbacombe’s cliff railway on one side and Devon’s dramatic red cliffs on the other.

Soak up the rays along Britain’s iconic coast