Origin of Hele

It is said that flints from the Stone Age have been found near Hele and the uplands to the south have many standing stones and barrows from the Bronze Age, but the first known settlers in Hele were the Iron Age Celts who constructed the great hillfort on Hillsborough.

This (winter) photograph on the right shows Beachside in the foreground, Hillsborough (447' high) in the middle and Ilfracombe in the distance.

Roman & Medieval Hele

The Romans started their occupation of Britain in 43 AD. The Celts abandoned their hillforts and communal settlements as they became Romanised and established new farms which later presumably became the manor farms of Domesday. 

Very few of the settlements in Devon have a Celtic name and all of those around Hele are Saxon. But were they founded by the Saxons? Probably not, since this would imply that North Devon was abandoned by the Celts in the Roman period, whereas the population of England has been estimated as 4M during the Roman occupation and only 1½-2M at the time of Domesday. More likely, the Saxons renamed existing settlements when they arrived in North Devon from the early C8th. 

Aside from post-Domesday medieval expansion which filled up land not already in use, the countryside probably stayed pretty much the same from the C3-4th until the industrialisation of the C18th. 

Industry & Tourism in Hele

There is evidence of a former lime-burning industry beside Hele beach which had already been abandoned by c1840. At this time Beach Road was still a stream and there was only one dwelling on the west side of the stream. 

From about 1878 until they were demolished around 1915, there was a Volunteer Battery at Beacon Point on Hillsborough with two guns.

By 1896 most of the buildings on the west side of the stream in Hele Bay were there, but there was still nothing on the east save the disused kilns. The Hele Bay Hotel was built in 1898 and the remaining land on the east was bought by a property developer who built Beach Terrace in 1905. He also built the sea wall, a coal store beside the beach and a two-story builder's store which had upstairs access to Watermouth Road (now demolished). 

Beachside was granted a static caravan license in 1961.