Pobbles is a secluded bay nuzzling the coastland to the immediate east of Three Cliffs Bay and actually joined to that beach at low tide.
Accessed via a twenty or so minute walk west along the cliff path from the car park at Pennard Cliffs (where there is also a shop and café), the route down to the beach itself is not too difficult though there is a rough scramble down the final descent to the sands themselves.
Beautiful sand, some dunes, the triple pointed rock face of Three Cliffs itself, as well as one of the most spectacular views over Gower from the headland above the bay, all make Pobbles one of Gower’s finer beaches. Because of the particularly treacherous tidal currents, however, batheing must not be attempted here.
In 1961, the coastline around here and Three Cliffs was temporarily appropriated by Hollywood to shoot scenes for ‘The Inspector’ (titled ‘Julia’ for American audiences). A Twentieth Century Fox production, the films had a budget of £2,000,000 and starred Stephen Boyd, Dolores Hart and Donald Pleasance. Shooting on the beach and along its coast (where the Milford Haven trawler ‘Agnes-Allen’ doubled for a gun boat) took two weeks during which huge palm trees decorated the bay to give the impression that Gower was, in fact, Palestine! A wooden fort was also constructed on the dunes of Three Cliffs to hide the distant houses of Penmaen from the camera. The plot of ‘The Inspector’ involved an Auschwitz survivor (Dolores Hart) seeking emigration to Palestine . The man to whom she turns to for aid, however, is in fact a white slave dealer who plans to ship her to some ex-Nazis in South America . The scenes featuring Gower appear towards the close of this two hour film and in its end credit sequence. The feature, directed by Philip Dunne, opened on October 1962 to poor reviews and even poorer audiences. Its run at Swansea ‘s Carlton cinema (now Waterstone’s Bookshop), despite being supported by a Kirk Douglas film, was a mere six days.
