-- literally "small world".
Shingle beaches such as the one here at Borth provide a relatively unusual environment, which is why there are so many rare species of plants, insects and seabirds here. The sea water drains quickly through the stones and hence they are often described as "stony deserts". The stones act as natural storage heaters, warming up during the day and releasing the heat at night.
Because of the backwash, shingle beaches tend to have a fairly steep slope, which makes them work particularly well as a natural sea defence mechanism.
But there is a problem:
"industry, power stations, housing and coastal defences have encroached on the shingle, which is often also used for building material"
"English Nature says the greatest threats to the shingle are coastal defence works, sea-level rise ... and the invasion of alien plants escaping from dumped garden waste"
Even too much dog walking is supposed to be problematic, and offroad cars and motorcycling are large problems.
How typical is that - we have a perfect environment naturally suited for sea defence and home to specially adapted wildlife and we go and mess it up. Well done humans, well done.
Tom.
P.S. There is a lovely recording of the waves here:
http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=022M-W1CDR0000635-3700V0.xml
LittleBop
i wish i did, because beaches are so pretty.. but i always get annoyed with it because it gets everywhere and then a week after going the beach, you are still pulling sand out your ears and finding it in your house! and it always gets in your sandwiches 
when you live near the sea its amazing just how you notice the worst aspects of what we humans do. I was lucky enough to go to the Bahamas to a very exclusive Island..years ago and I saw rubbish there dumped of cruise ships deck chairs the lot on those beautiful pristine beaches..grrr and double G R R.
i like them.
as a family we have always gone to black rock beach in porthmadog when we went. and i dont very much like sand.. so i always used to go down into the caves and climb on the rocks and such. and i loved finding shingles on the rocks. there wasnt that much, but i always found it intreguing (however not knowing what it was, i used to find it fun to touch them because they would close up and then reopen when they got wet, probably ruining them, but hey)