Beachy Head

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lighthouse under the cliff

How the Beachy Head Lighthouse was built. Photo shows a temporary cable car and iron ocean platform transporting workers and stones to the lighthouse site.

For the cliffs themselves see Seven Sisters

Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (530 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness to the east, to Selsey Bill in the west. Its height has also made it a notorious suicide spot.

The chalk was formed in the Cretaceous period when the area was under the sea, 65 million years ago and earlier. During the Cenozoic Era the chalk was uplifted, and was later eroded to form the dramatic cliffs of the Sussex coast.

Some of the cliffs were lost in 2001 when, after a winter of heavy rains, a chalk pinnacle known as the Devil's Chimney, collapsed into the sea.

The name Beachy Head appears as 'Beauchef' in 1274, and was Beaucheif in 1317, becoming consistently Beachy Head by 1724, and has nothing to do with beach. Instead it is a corruption of the original French words meaning Beautiful Headland.^[1]

The prominence of Beachy Head has made it a landmark for sailors in the English Channel. It is noted as such in the sea shanty "Spanish Ladies" :

The first land we sighted was called the Dodman,

Next Rame Head off Plymouth, off Portsmouth the Wight;

We sailed by Beachy, by Fairlight and Dover,

And then we bore up for the South Foreland light.

[edit] Lighthouses

The headland was also a danger to shipping. In 1831 the construction of Belle Tout lighthouse was started on the next headland west from Beachy Head, but it did not become operational until 1834. Because its light could not be seen in mist and low cloud, it was superseded by a newer lighthouse, 43 m in height, built in the sea below Beachy Head and operational from October 1902.^[1] Until the lighthouse was fully automated in 1983, the red and white striped tower was manned by three lighthouse keepers. Their job was to maintain the light that rotated two white flashes every 20 seconds, 26 miles out to sea. Belle Tout lighthouse was moved more than 17 m (50 ft) further inland in March 1999 due to cliff erosion.^[2]

[edit] Beachy Head at war

The third day of fighting in the Battle of Portland, 1653, took place off Beachy Head during the First Anglo-Dutch War. The Battle of Beachy Head, 1690, was a naval engagement during the Nine Years' War. During World War II, the RAF established a forward relay station at Beachy Head to improve radio communications with aircraft. In 1942, signals were picked up at Beachy Head which were identified as TV transmissions from the Eiffel Tower. The Germans had reactivated the pre-war TV transmitter and instituted a Franco-German service for military hospitals and VIPs in the Paris region. The RAF monitored these programmes hoping (in vain) to gather intelligence from newsreels.^[3] There was also an important wartime radar station in the area and, during the Cold War, a radar control centre was operational in an underground bunker from 1953 to 1957.^[1]

[edit] Tourism

West from Belle Tout, the cliffs drop down to Birling Gap, and beyond that the Seven Sisters. The whole area is a popular tourist attraction, and Birling Gap has a restaurant and, in the summer, multiple ice cream vans.

[edit] Suicide

Since the 1600s Beachy Head has been notorious as a location for people to attempt suicide, estimated at 20 each year.^[4] There are regular day and evening patrols by the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team, and a special telephone box with a direct line to The Samaritans. After a steady increase in deaths between 2002 and 2005, there was a marked decrease in 2006 with only seven fatalities, a reduction attributed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to the actions of the Chaplaincy Team and local media^[5].

[edit] In Popular Culture

Beachy Head is also famous in film. In the 1979 film Quadrophenia, the character Jimmy intends to ride off the chalk cliff top on a Vespa belonging to a gang leader known as ‘Ace Face’. However, this results only in the scooter colliding with the rocks at the base of the cliff.

Industrial group Throbbing Gristle frontman Genesis P. Orridge's mother had asked him why he never did anything nice, and as a result the band dressed smartly and posed on Beachy Head for the cover photo of 20 Jazz Funk Greats.

• The videos for "Close to Me" and "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure are both shot at Beachy Head.

In the final episode of Little Britain, there is a scene with Andy Pipkin which was filmed at Beachy Head.

The group Black Box Recorder's album England Made Me features pictures of Beachy Head in the CD booklet, and it is mentioned in the last song of the album, "Hated Sunday".

The Belle Tout lighthouse was the inspiration for the lighthouse in Catherine Storr's children's story Marianne Dreams. In the novel's sequel, Marianne and Mark the two main characters walk accross Beachy Head and visit the real Bell Tout.

In the episode Many Happy Returns from the TV series The Prisoner, Number 6 comes ashore at Beachy Head after 'escaping' from The Village.

In the episode The Girl Who Was Death from the TV series The Prisoner, Number 6 confronts Death and her insane scientist father Schnipps in the Beachy Head lighthouse (doubling as a missile) in which the lighthouse/missile is blown up.

Footage of Beachy Head was specially filmed and imcorporated into effects shots to create exterior shots of the Qudditch World Cup stadium in the Film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

[edit] References

[edit] Images of Beachy Head

Lighthouse at Beachy Head.	Beachy Head and lighthouse.	Flowers laid at the cliff edge.	Close up of Beachy Head lighthouse.
Top of lighthouse, detail.	Seven Sisters, with Beachy Head in the distance.	Image of the Belle Tout lighthouse.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Beachy Head

• Beachy Head - a page from Eastbourne's official website
• Beachy Head walk to East Dean
• Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team
• The Belle Toute Lighthouse Preservation Trust An organisation being formed to purchase and maintain the Belle Toute lighthouse as well as open it to the public

Coordinates: 50.73743° N 0.24768° E