Sand hotel welcomes guests

Updated 16.58 Wed Jul 23 2008
Keywords: holiday, Weymouth, bucket, sea, Dorset, credit crunch, seaside, spade, Sandcastle, hotel, sand, beach

The world's first sand hotel has 'opened' charging its first guests £10 a night.

The hotel was built by sand sculptor Mark Anderson and has been designed to look like a giant sand castle.

The hotel was built by sand sculptor Mark Anderson and has been designed to look like a giant sand castle

It will stay up until the tide washes it away on Weymouth beach in Dorset.

Mr Anderson said: "It's Britain's largest ever sand castle - 15 metres square, four metres high and weighs about 1,000 tonnes.

"We had a team of six people and a digger working 12 to 14 hours a day for eight days, altogether about 600 hours.

"It was really intense but we had a great time."

It is made from Weymouth beach sand, the finest in the world for making sand castles, according to Mr Anderson.

"I have been on about 200 beaches and have only found one in Tasmania with sand as fine for making sculptures as Weymouth," he added.

The sand hotel was commissioned by UK website LateRooms.com after its research found 57 per cent of holiday-makers were shunning foreign destinations in favour of a British seaside resort.

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