Combe Martin Bay

Combe Martin sits where Exmoor tumbles into the sea, a long straggling village at the head of a sheltered rocky cove framed by the Great and Little Hangman headlands - the highest sea cliffs in England. It's an underrated aerial spot: launch from the beach or the Kiln pay-and-display car park at the seafront and you can climb to reveal the cove, the little harbour wall and the vast green shoulder of Great Hangman rising behind. Combe Martin is within Exmoor National Park, which - unlike Dartmoor - has no drone byelaw, and the village and beach are not National Trust, so you're on firm legal footing flying from the foreshore. Keep the usual distances from people and property, and note the cliffs beyond the bay are open coast with nesting seabirds in spring. There's no controlled airspace nearby. Winds funnel down the combe and swirl around the Hangman, so expect gusty, unpredictable air on anything but a settled day. The cove faces roughly north, so it favours morning and midday light over sunset; a calm high tide fills the little harbour and gives the cleanest reflections and the richest colour in the shallows.