The most valuable thing my son will inherit is a beloved holiday destination in the UK.

Simple, cheap and full of laughs, those two or three weeks spent running in the sun were the highlight of our year. So when my son, Finn (my dad’s first grandson), was born last April, followed by my sister’s daughter (named after our grandmother) in May, we knew exactly where his first vacation should be and with whom.

But with two young babies in tow and parents who weren’t too keen on sleeping on the floor, recreating the nostalgic days of our childhood under a tarp didn’t seem like an option. So for the first time ever, we decided to roll up the sleeping bags and book a house big enough to accommodate the 13 of us.

We left the booking quite late, but surprisingly found that Penmellyn House, a beautiful Grade II listed building to the south of Mawgan Porth, still had availability in August, as it does this year. Seven bedrooms, two lounges, a large dining table, a well-equipped kitchen and a large garden made it the perfect base for our multi-generational vacation. Every day the sun shone and we went out en masse to the beach.

The beauty of St Merryn is that there are so many to choose from; “Seven bays for seven days”, as the slogan says. Trevone Bay, Harlyn Bay, Mother Ivey’s Bay, Booby’s Bay, Constantine Bay, Treyarnon Bay and Porthcothan Bay can be found, in that order, on the stretch of coast between Padstow running west towards Newquay.

Each beach has its own charms: Treyarnon has a popular tidal pool; Constantine’s vast sands are backed by dunes; Booby’s Bay is tidal with rock pools at low tide; and Harlyn, the best equipped, has food trucks.