Surfing may be a pastime synonymous with swaying palms and jangling Californian guitar music, but what’s little known is the role that Britain’s own surfing pioneers have played in the development of the sport.
The Museum of British Surfing
recently opened in Braunton, North Devon, with exhibitions spanning Captain
Cook’s encounters with Polynesian surfers in the 18th Century – the
first time a European witnessed the sport – through to a small flotilla of historic
Britain’s surfing pioneers were very
different from the tousled-haired stereotypes of today. Agatha Christie was
among the first, taking to the shores around South Africa and Hawaii in the
1920s. She recalled that there was: “Nothing like that rushing through the
water at what seemed to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour… until
you arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft
British surfing has even had Royal approval
– Edward Windsor, the future King Edward VIII, carried the distinction of being
the first surfer from Britain to be photographed on his first trip to Hawaii in
This article was published in partnership with Lonely Planet Traveller.