The History of Surfing in Scotland and the UK
We've got a pretty special surfing spot on the Isle of Tiree, the home of THIRTY-SQUARE. At the westernmost point of the Inner Hebrides, we capture the best warm waters of the Gulf Stream. There's a reason why they call us the Hawaii of the North. Nevertheless, this is most definitely a coldwater swimming spot. In fact, with the best surfing weather over the winter months, surfers are treated to near-zero temperatures and epic waves.
Yet, for all the incredible surfing weather, it's not most people's first thought when they hit a Scottish beach. Yes, the sands are alabaster white, and the waters are relatively warm compared to Canada or Russia. But it's still pretty hardy weather.
It got us all thinking – how did surfing take off in Scotland (and the rest of the UK)? Here on Tiree, surfers have been hitting the beaches like Balevullin and Balephetrish since long before the 1980s. Though it wasn't until 1986 that the Tiree Wave Classic was set up – an epic windsurfing competition attracting talent from all over the world.
What started with a simple question turned into a deep dive into the surfing past. We trawled blogs and books and surfed every surfing site on the web. The history of surfing in Scotland and the UK is a fascinating journey. While surfing might not be thought of as the quintessential British or Scottish sport, along the rugged coastlines and sandy beaches, there's long been a balmy bunch braving the waves and riding the surf. This is their story.
We'll explore those early surfing pioneers and how the cold-water surfing culture has evolved over the decades since. We think of the beaches of Newquay and the West Country as the heart of surfing in the UK. However, we'll see how surfing has become an integral part of our coastal culture throughout the country, from Newquay to Thurso.
1. A Little Background
2. Early British Surfing: An Aristocratic Pastime
3. British Surfing Is Not an Aussie Import
4. Surfing Fever Takes Hold
5. Who first rode the Scottish waves?
6. Scottish Surfing Takes to the Waves
7. Scottish Surfing Goes West
8. Tiree Classic Makes Waves
9. Scottish Coldwater Surfing Today
The History of Surfing in Scotland and the UK
A Little Background
All too often, we assume surfing is a modern sport. As if it was first invented on the golden beaches of Australia just fifty years ago. In fact, evidence of surfing practices is found throughout the world, dating back more than five thousand years. In South America, amongst the Incan and Peruvian cultures, we see the earliest evidence of surfing. There, the fisherman would ride boards of reeds along the coastline – a practice that continued until the Spanish arrived in the 1500s.
Nor was that the only place surfing was invented. Across the Pacific, the Polynesians – perhaps the most aquatic culture on the planet – invented and mastered the art of he'e nalu (or wave sliding). Joseph Banks, riding aboard Captain Cook's ship HMS Endeavour, witnessed them hitting the waves:
"...their cheif [sic] amusement was carried on by the stern of an old canoe, with this before them they swam out as far as the outermost breach, then one or two would get into it and opposing the blunt end to the breaking wave were hurried in with incredible swiftness."
High chief Abner Paki's board was actually loaned to the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in the early 2000s, marking the first time it had been exhibited outside of Hawaii.
The Polynesians of Hawaii were avid surfers. It was more than just a hobby; rather, it was an active part of Hawaiian culture – more of an art than anything else. Prayers would be made to soothe the ocean, and surfers believed they undertook a great spiritual ceremony.
Early British Surfing: An Aristocratic Hobby
It may have been a spiritual practice, but it was also fun. And the Polynesians were keen to share their passion with the world. It's believed the agriculturalist John Wrightson was the first person in Britain to surf in 1890, when two Hawaiian princes, David Kawānanakoa and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, took the middle-aged Wrightson out onto Bridlington beach.
Nor was he the last to mount the waves. Legend has it, Agatha Christie, ever one for adventure, tried surfing while visiting Waikiki in Hawaii. And King Edward VIII, when he was Prince of Wales, also went surfing in Waikiki. Strange it seems today to consider surfing an aristocratic pastime. Still, no one had yet had the bright (or perhaps mad) idea of coldwater surfing. Somehow the chilly beaches of Tiree didn't have the same appeal. When the writer Jack London visited Hawaii, he christened it 'A Royal Sport' because it was so popular with the world's royalty.
Some say the origins of British surfing go back even further, however. Charles Steedman, for example, published his 'Manual of Swimming' in 1867, stating:
"A small deal board, about five feet long, one foot broad, and an inch thick, termed a 'surf board', is of considerable help to a swimmer who are crossing water on which the foam is deep…".
It hadn't yet occurred to us to stand up on it – heaven forbid!
Shortly after, travel writer JW Boddam-Whetham visited Hawaii in 1876, noting, "I do not see why this attractive sport should not be introduced in England in suitable localities – Brighton, for instance."
Regardless, the sport didn't take off in the UK at first.
In the British colony of Australia, surfing took on a common touch. When, in 1910, Tommy Walker returned to Manly Beach, Sydney with a 10ft surfboard he'd bought in Hawaii, he certainly attracted a few stares. Within two years, he was a pro, giving exhibitions to Sydney audiences.
Two years later, Walker was joined, once again, by Hawaiian nobility. This time, by Duke Kahanamoku in the summer of 1914 to 1915. Soon enough, surfing has taken Australia by storm. The Australian love affair with the beach took on a new life.
British surfing is not an Aussie Import
While it was typical for British ideas to trickle down to the colony, now the tide was turning. In 1929 – nineteen years after Tommy Walker first hit the Sydney beaches – four Australian teenagers brought the sport to Cribbar, Britain.
If you're not aware – Cribbar is the surfing mecca of the UK, located at Newquay. This is often quoted as the moment surfing came to the UK properly – yet, it's a myth! The first surfing picture in the UK was snapped in 1904 by Hobart Braddick, founder of Braddick's Holidays, in 1919. Taken in North Devon, it's suspected locals had been surfing there for a decade or more.
In fact, another photo from 1920 shows a bunch of Cornish surfers – men and women – primitive boards in hand. They were modified coffin lids about five feet long made by the local undertaker.
We had a long way to go.
By 1923, Britain's first surf club opened after Nigel Oxenden, a veteran of the Great War, returned home following extensive travels to Hawaii, South Attica, and Australia. Meanwhile, Australian surfing champion Charles Snowy McAlister gave an impressive surfing demonstration showing off his moves in 1928. He wowed crowds and put to rest an odd local assumption that British waves weren't meant to be surfed on.
Surfing Fever Takes Hold
After tepidly dipping our feet in the water, surfing – particularly along the south coast – reached fever pitch. In 1932 Britain's weekly scouting magazine featured a boy surfing alongside the tagline "Surf riding is fine fun." And two years later, Ronald Funnell published Britain's first surfing guide, titled 'The Art of Surf riding'. It taught readers how to ride waves (still lying down – we really didn't like the idea of standing up) and suggested the best surfing beaches in Britain (Tiree was notably absent!).
Throughout the 1930s, surfing took root in Cornwall and Devon – where it remains ever popular to this day. Nor did the royal association disappear entirely. The Duke of Gloucester cut the ribbon of the UK's first wave pool on 25th July 1934 in Wembley, London.
Surfing soon became the chief attraction in Cornwall, with books and railway brochures endlessly advertising this new national pastime. Then war broke out. The fledgling UK surf scene hit choppy waters, just as Brits were getting the hang of it.
Who first rode the Scottish waves?
Surfing is often thought of as a warm water sport. It wasn't the Vikings or the Innuits who first took to the board – it was the Polynesians riding the warm subtropical waves. Even Peruvians enjoyed toasty temperatures – or else surfing might never have been invented.
The question isn't why didn't surfing take off in Scotland earlier, as, why did it take off at all? The answer seems to be because we could.
When the British Surfing Museum headed north to Aberdeen in 2006, it told the story of Tris Cokes, a Cornishman who holds the title of the first person to catch a wave in Scottish waters in 1968. When asked what his first Scottish surf was like, he responded in true Cornish fashion:
"I'm 56 years old! I'm supposed to remember what the day was like 40 years ago? It was bloody cold in the water; I remember that."
However, the museum might have gotten the wrong man. Earlier that year, a hardy bunch of Aberdonian surfers (as if there could be any other type) ventured out onto the surf. These surf pioneers built their own hollow surfboards from marine ply and paddled out on the east coast.
Even they might not have been the first. George Law, for example, who worked morning shifts at the local Aberdeen abattoir, often hit the surf in his free afternoons from 1967.
So was Law the first Scottish surfer – an intrepid Aberdonian pioneer… perhaps not.
According to The Scotsman, Neva Macdonald-Haig, who, at 91-years-old, contacted the paper in 2014. Neva claimed that she and her brothers, Peter and David, first rode the waves off the Mull of Kintyre in the mid-1930s – when the early surfing waves were at their zenith. Like the Cornish, they used boards made by the local undertaker.
"It makes a good story to say there were coffin lids we rode on," she regaled. "But they weren't really. They were rounded at the end – probably about five or six feet long."
She's right – it's a hell of a story.
Scottish Surfing Takes to the Waves
Sometimes history is a flip of the coin – a chance encounter no one expected. So, it was in September 1968 when Andy Bennetts, Ian Wishart, and Stuart Chrichton took the train from Edinburgh to Aberdeen to hit the waves. They lugged their immense surfboards all along the journey and eventually out onto the beach.
Little did they know Scottish surfing history was about to be made.
After asking at the beach pavilion if they could leave their boards somewhere, the response came, "Of course, put it beside this other one." The "other" board belonged to George Law – one of the only other surfers in all Scotland. It must have been a bizarre experience. Thinking you were the only surfer in the country, only to meet like-minded souls – like members of a forbidden religion meeting each other for the first time.
Cold-water surfing was a very different experience back then. Neither Bennetts and the Gang nor Law wore wetsuits. They'd spend a short time out on the water before heading back into the Pavilion to warm up around a wood-burning stove. It was there that Law and the rest exchanged stories and discussed surfing – as would become commonplace in the years after.
But this was a first.
"We got some funny looks," Wishart remembered. "People were wondering what it was. We walked right down Union Street, right down Beach Boulevard all the way to the Beach Pavilion, which is no longer there…."
To mark the 50th anniversary of the bizarre meeting of minds, Bennetts, Wishart, and another Scottish surfing pioneer Bill Batten sat down for an interview, discussing that fateful day.
You can read more about it here in The Scotsman.
In one eye-opening story, Batten decided to get a wetsuit after braving the cold Scottish water. That wasn't an easy thing in the late 60s. He eventually found a neoprene rubber company in Newquay. They provided the rubber and drawings of how to cut out a wetsuit – which he and his wife spent the following week assembling. "Extremely uncomfortable, but it was warmer than not having a wetsuit," was his conclusion.
Crazy times!
Scottish Surfing Goes West
All the Scottish surfing pioneers may have been based on the East Coast around Edinburgh. They surfed beaches like Belhaven, Pease Bay, and Coldingham. It's odd to Scottish surfers today. First, the waters are far colder in the North Sea, and the waves are much smaller.
Bennett and the boys headed for the West Coast, always looking for an adventure and wanting to make a little more surfing history. The islands were a little tricky – so no Tiree just yet. Instead, they picked Machrihanish, at the southern tip of the Mull of Kintyre, where the swells are excellent, if inconsistent.
Unhappy with the unpredictability of the waves, they ventured further afield. At Bettyhill – just around the corner from Thurso – the northern waves were first surfed. This wasn't the now-popular giant waves at Thurso East – but it was the start of the Scottish surfing mecca.
It was the early 1970s, and Bettyhill was becoming the Newquay of the North.
However, unlike their chance encounter with Law, they missed a local surfer in Thurso: Pat Kieran. This lonely Liverpudlian had surfed Thurso East in the mid-1970s. Noting how impressive the waves were, he wrote an article in an English surfing magazine hoping to attract some like-minded friends. It worked. Slowly but surely, Thurso developed a reputation as the famous surfing spot it's known as today.
Tiree Classic Makes Waves
In the early days of British surfing, it was little more than a few intrepid friends discovering where to go and what to do. There was no rulebook. No guide to the best surfing spots. However, by the mid-1970s, things started turning official.
In 1975 the Scottish Surfing Federation was founded, with "the overall vision of the SSF … to represent the interests of Scotland's surfers and protect the Scottish Waves." A few years later, in 1979, the English Surfing Federation was formed. There was even a British surfing team in 1978, who met Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace before flying out to South Africa for the World Amateur Championships. (In fact, the Duke of Cornwall had surfed a fair bit in Australia and at Constantine in Cornwall.)
By the time the 1980s rolled around, surfing was firmly entrenched in the British psyche. Even twists on the sport, like windsurfing, were catching on.
So it was that in 1985, Glaswegian Steven Bisset set about organising what would become known as the Tiree Wave Classic. Tiree had only recently been discovered as a prime surfing and windsurfing location. Yet, word was already spreading of the near-legendary conditions.
Sadly, the first year was an unmitigated disaster. Despite plenty of avid windsurfers making the pilgrimage north, the poor weather meant no competition took place.
Windsurfers aren't an easily dissuaded bunch. And so, the following year, they tried again. Andy Groom and Joe Kelly are primarily responsible for putting together the 1986 event – and adopting the moniker "Classic". It wasn't yet the world-class event we know today. However, many Scottish windsurfing names appeared like Duncan Coombs, Peter Hart, and Dave Cordell.
It was a massive success – so much so that it's been held on the island every year since.
Scottish Coldwater Surfing Today
We've come a long way since the early days of surfing – and we've learned a lot here in Scotland. When you head out onto the Scottish water, you'll no longer be met with so many odd looks and glances. And you can even buy a surfboard in Scotland! No coffin lids for us!
In fact, Scotland is now known as being one of Europe's top surfing destinations, just as long as you remember your wetsuit – cold water surfing isn't for fainthearted.
Many of the most popular spots are still the beaches found by those early Scottish pioneers: Coldingham Bay, Dunbar, and Pease Bay on the East Coast. Meanwhile, here on the West Coast, the strong south westerly winds attract generations of surfers to try brave the waves.
Tiree even boasts its own surf school – Blackhouse Watersports!
And, not far away, on the Isle of Cumbrae, you'll find Scotland's premier watersports centre. Coldwater surfing is still something of a niche hobby. But it's no longer a lonely one. You'll often find surfers on almost any decent surfing spot in Scotland
So, whether you're a surfer or windsurfer, bodyboarder or wakeboarder, there's a thriving community ready to take you in.
For that – we say thanks to the pioneers! Thanks to the Hawaiians who passed along their art! And thanks to every brave soul who first ventured out into the cold Scottish waters.