Lady’s Tower Beach

The tower itself is the real draw here - a red-brick Victorian folly standing right on the beach near Leven, built back in the 1840s as a bathing house for a local woman who wanted privacy. These days it's just you, the Firth of Forth stretching across the water, and a fairly bracing walk along the sand to reach it.

It's not a massive attraction - you're looking at twenty minutes to walk out, half an hour poking around the tower if you're interested in that sort of thing, then back again. But the whole exercise has a proper sense of occasion to it. The beach here is wide and quiet, nothing like the busier spots further up the coast. On a decent day the views across to Edinburgh are genuinely excellent, and on a grey one there's something quite atmospheric about the isolation of the place.

Historians and architectural types will find it more rewarding than families with young children, though kids do enjoy the walk and the novelty of exploring an actual old building. Low tide is obviously your friend if you want dry feet. The nearest caravan sites - Forth House, Monturpie, and Woodland Gardens are all within five miles - make for decent bases to explore this stretch of the Fife coastline without the crowds of the better-known beaches further south. Worth the detour if you're already in the area, though don't expect bustling seaside charm. This is quieter, stranger territory.