SalcombeHoliday Accommodation

Salcombe, South Devon

Salcombe Apartments

Self-catering flats above the harbour and behind Fore Street — a kitchen and, more often than not, a view of the water.

All apartments we list in Salcombe

30 properties, with the street or area each one sits on. Prices and availability are shown on Booking.com when you open a property.

Apartments in Salcombe

Apartments are the second-largest category in Salcombe and the natural choice for two people, or for anyone who wants a kitchen without taking on a whole house. Most sit in converted buildings on the slope above the harbour or a street or two back from Fore Street, which puts the shops, the ferry steps and the beaches within a walk.

The appeal is straightforward. You get the position — this is a town where being able to walk down to the water in the evening is most of the point — without the weekly-let scale of a family house. Many have a balcony or a window facing the estuary, and on this hillside a first or second floor is often worth more than a ground floor for exactly that reason.

Two things to check. Stairs: these are old buildings on a steep street, and lifts are rare. And parking, which is the constraint on the whole town in summer — where an apartment has an allocated space, that is a real advantage rather than a nicety.

The view is the point

Salcombe is built up a hillside above a working harbour, and a good many apartments look straight down it. Height above the water usually matters more to the outlook than the number of the street.

Walkable by design

Most sit within a short walk of Fore Street, the ferry steps and the town beaches — which is the version of Salcombe that works without moving the car once you have arrived.

Read the stairs

These are conversions on a steep slope. Where stairs, levels or step-free access matter to you, check the listing rather than assuming; the same applies to whether parking comes with the flat.

Features & Amenities

Self-catering, with a private kitchen
Many with an estuary or harbour outlook
Short walk to Fore Street, the beaches and the ferry
Suits couples and smaller parties
Stairs are common — check before booking if that matters
Parking stated per property

More about Salcombe

Salcombe sits at the mouth of the Kingsbridge Estuary, which is not really a river estuary at all but a ria — a valley drowned by rising sea level. That is why it runs so far inland, and why the water in it is salt the whole way up to Kingsbridge. The result is a naturally sheltered harbour, and the town has spent most of its history making use of it: first as a port, then as a shipbuilding town, and now as one of the busiest sailing centres on the south coast. The harbour has its own class of dinghy, the Salcombe Yawl, designed and built here.

The town is built up a hillside, so almost everything has a view and almost nothing is flat. Fore Street runs along the waterfront with the beaches and the ferry steps below it; the streets above climb steeply enough that a property’s height above the water is worth checking before you book. A small shellfish fleet — around twenty boats, none of them large — still works out of the harbour, which is why the town’s reputation for seafood is a real one rather than a marketing line.

South of the town the shore opens into North Sands and South Sands, and above South Sands the National Trust’s Overbeck’s is terraced into the cliffs at Sharpitor — a subtropical garden of exotic and rare planting, looking out over the mouth of the estuary. Beyond it the land rises to Bolt Head, and the South West Coast Path turns west along some of the most exposed cliff in Devon.

Frequently Asked Questions About Salcombe

Overwhelmingly self-catering. Apartments above the harbour, whole houses on the hillside streets and cottages behind Fore Street make up the great majority of what is available, alongside a small number of hotels and hosted stays. Everything we list in the town is on this page; use the property-type links to narrow it.

It is the natural one for this stretch of coast. The South West Coast Path runs through the town in both directions, the estuary ferries reach beaches you cannot easily drive to, and Kingsbridge and the villages of the South Hams are a short drive inland. It is the end of a peninsula, though — anything on the eastern shore means a ferry or a long way round by road.

Within the town, yes. It is small, and parking in the centre is genuinely difficult in season, so many visitors are better off leaving the car where they are staying. A ferry crosses to East Portlemouth and another runs down to South Sands. For the wider area you will want a car or the bus — check current timetables rather than assuming a connection.

North Sands and South Sands lie on the town side of the estuary, south of the centre. On the East Portlemouth shore opposite is a run of sandy beaches — Sunny Cove nearest the bar, then the larger Mill Bay, Cable Cove, Small’s Cove and Fisherman’s Cove — reached by the passenger ferry. The South Sands ferry lands passengers by sea tractor when the tide is out.

The school summer holidays, and regatta week — Salcombe Yacht Club runs its regatta every August and it draws several hundred dinghies. Accommodation books up a long way ahead for both, and the roads in and out are single-carriageway, so arrival times matter more here than in most places. Late spring and September are quieter, and the coast path is at its best.