City of Edinburgh, Scotland

Wardie Bay

Launch — An unmanaged sand beach that slopes gently to the water, with no slipway or other built launch point.

Parking — No dedicated car park. OpenStreetMap records informal parking within about 100 metres along Lower Granton Road, one area open to the public and a neighbouring one private.

Access — Reached on foot from Lower Granton Road. Access rights to beaches and the foreshore, and to non-motorised water-based activities, are covered by the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.

Season — SEPA samples water quality only during the bathing water season, 1 June to 15 September.

Regulations — Forth Ports is the statutory harbour authority for this stretch of the Forth. Its byelaws require every vessel to be marked with its name or identification number. No launch permit, registration or fee for unpowered craft was found from Forth Ports, SEPA or the council.

A sandy beach on the Firth of Forth shore at Granton, in north Edinburgh, lying between Granton Harbour's breakwaters and Newhaven. SEPA designated it a bathing water in 2023, and City of Edinburgh Council took on responsibility for its signage and beach cleaning.

The Eastern Breakwater that shelters Granton Harbour to the west is Category B listed, built in 1853-63 and faced in sandstone quarried on the Granton Estate. The harbour behind it has been home to two yacht clubs, the Royal Forth Yacht Club, founded in 1868, and the Forth Corinthian Yacht Club, founded in 1880, and to a former Northern Lighthouse Board depot at Granton Lighthouse, now a Category C listed building owned by the council.

The whole of this shoreline lies within the Firth of Forth Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Area; the SSSI citation records that Wardie and Cheese Bay have yielded some of Europe's earliest amphibian fossil remains. Seagrass is recorded along the shore, though a local ecology partnership notes that numbers have greatly diminished, and harbour seals are reported using the harbour nearby.

Nearby

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Porto & Fi

A café on Newhaven Main Street, about 1.2 km east of the beach.

Website

The Haven

A café on Anchorfield in Newhaven, about 1.8 km east of the beach.

Website

Morrisons Cafe

A café inside the Morrisons supermarket at Granton, about 1.6 km west of the beach.

Website

Edinburgh Club Campsite

A campsite at Silverknowes, about 3.0 km west of the beach, open to tents and caravans, members and non-members, all year.

Website

Conditions to check

Boat traffic

Pilot vessels, described by Forth Ports as small, close to the water and fast, operate from Granton to the west.

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Boat traffic

Cruise-ship tenders use a dredged channel off the bay, and commercial vessels, sometimes assisted by tugs, enter the Leith locks nearby in tidally constrained windows during which they cannot change course.

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Boat traffic

The Royal Forth Yacht Club races using club buoys in Wardie Bay, with evening racing on Wednesdays or Thursdays and Saturday racing through the season.

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Other

Bathing is advised against during and for one to two days after heavy rainfall because of the risk of sewer overflows, and increased jellyfish numbers are recorded in the bay during summer months.

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Location data

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