It is located two miles to the south of St Buryan churchtown, and between Penberth and Lamorna.

St Loy's is within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), the Boscawen SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and is part of a GCR Geological Conservation Review site.

The South West Coast Path passes through the cove.

The stream at the bottom of the valley flows out to sea under a boulder storm beach backed by soft orange–brown cliffs of head deposits formed by solifluction when the climate was similar to that of Greenland's today.

Coastal exposures at the site show a sequence of granitic shore platform overlain in turn by raised beach deposits and head deposits".