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North Devon has the rugged ones, East Devon the genteel, but if you want the perfect holiday beach with everything, South Devon is where you want to be. Atlantic breakers don't break on our rocks, but we can do you piers and crazy golf, fine dining and secluded coves, and officially the best sandcastle sand in the land.

In 2004 the alliterative beach boffins of Bournemouth University toured holiday resorts, surveying the sand all around the coast of the UK in search of the perfect formula for making the best sandcastle. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

There's a formula for it and after much testing and, presumably, mulling over the results over a 99 from the kiosk, they discovered that the mix at Torre Abbey Sands is just about perfect for creating a castle and sticking a paper flag in the top.

The special formula reads 'OW0.125 x s.', but in layman's terms that means roughly one part water to eight parts of sand.

Come to Torbay and you get a lot of beach for your buck, from the shingle of secluded Elberry Cove, where water-skiers and jet-skiers meet and dogs chase stones into the water, to the tourist traps like Goodrington, where you can have a pint, play the fruit machines or scream like a banshee as you plunge down the water chutes.

Goodrington is the epitome of a fine British holiday beach, where the sands are broad enough not to be crowded even in the height of summer and steam trains chug past on their way up the strenuous climb to Three Beaches.

Outside Torbay the variety is even greater. From the peace and wildlife at Dawlish Warren through bustling Teignmouth to picture-postcard-perfect Blackpool Sands, these are Britain's best beaches, no question.

Go further down the coast and you'll arrive at Bantham, where the west-facing beach does pick up some surf, and where Burgh Island oozes intrigue and history.

We love all of Devon's beaches. Each one has a different story to tell, and a different appeal for its devotees.

But South Devon is the place for variety and excellence. Even better if you want to build a sandcastle