Beachy Head

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Beachy Head
Cliff
Beachy Head Lighthouse under the cliff.jpg
Beachy Head Lighthouse under the cliff
East Sussex UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
The cliff within East Sussex
Coordinates: 50°44′15″N00°14′51″E / 50.73750°N 0.24750°E / 50.73750; 0.24750
Location Eastbourne, East Sussex, England
Age Late Cretaceous, Cenozoic
Highest elevation162 m (531 ft)

Beachy Head is a chalk headland in East Sussex, England. It is situated close to Eastbourne, immediately east of the Seven Sisters.

Contents

Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land, forming part of the Eastbourne Downland Estate. The cliff is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (531 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast towards Dungeness in the east, and to the Isle of Wight in the west.

LB&SCR H2 class 4-4-2 steam locomotive number 424 (later B424, 2424, and 32424) was named Beachy Head after this landmark.

Geology

The chalk was formed in the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 66 and 100 million years ago, when the area was under the sea. During the Cenozoic Era, the chalk was uplifted (see Cenozoic Era). When the last ice age ended, sea levels rose and the English Channel formed, cutting into the chalk to form the dramatic cliffs along the Sussex coast.

Wave action contributes to the erosion of cliffs around Beachy Head, which experience frequent small rock falls. Since chalk forms in layers separated by contiguous bands of flints, the physical structure affects how the cliffs erode. Wave action undermines the lower cliffs, causing frequent slab failures – slabs from layers of chalk break off, undermining the upper parts of the cliffs, which eventually collapse. [1] In contrast to small rock falls, mass movements are less common. A mass movement happened in 2001 when, after a winter of heavy rain, the water had begun to seep into the cracks which had frozen and caused the cracks to widen. This then made the cliff edge erode and collapse into the sea, destroying a well-known chalk stack called the Devil's Chimney. [2]

History

The name Beachy Head appears as 'Beauchef' in 1274, becoming 'Beaucheif' by 1317, and it has nothing to do with the word "beach". Instead, it is a corruption of the original French words meaning "beautiful headland" (beau chef). It was being consistently called Beachy Head by 1724. [3] [4]

In 1929, Eastbourne Borough Council bought 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares ) of land surrounding Beachy Head to save it from development at a cost of about £100,000 (equivalent to £6,467,710in 2021). [5] This land became known as the Eastbourne Downland Estate.[ citation needed ]

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 : [6]

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.

The ashes of German social scientist and philosopher Friedrich Engels, one of the fathers of communism, were scattered off the cliffs at Beachy Head into the Channel, as he had requested. [3]

Human remains discovered in the 1950s were subjected to forensic reconstruction, carbon dating, and radioisotype analysis, and it was concluded that they were those of a Roman woman of Sub-Saharan African origin who grew up in the Eastbourne area in about 200–250 CE. She became known as Beachy Head Lady. [7] [8] [9] However, in 2021, DNA testing indicated she was of "southern European lineage, most likely from Cyprus"; [10] the parish later ordered the removal of a plaque erected by the BBC "to commemorate the first black Briton." [11]

Lighthouse

Belle Tout Lighthouse Seven Sisters 3.jpg
Belle Tout Lighthouse

The headland has been considered a danger to shipping. In 1831, construction began on the Belle Tout Lighthouse on the next headland west from Beachy Head. Because mist and low clouds could hide the light of Belle Tout, it was decommissioned in 1902, after the Beachy Head Lighthouse had been built in the sea below Beachy Head as a replacement.

At war

The third day of fighting in the Battle of Portland in 1653 took place off Beachy Head during the First Anglo-Dutch War. The Battle of Beachy Head in 1690 was a naval engagement during the Nine Years' War. The so-called Second Battle of Beachy Head took place over a week in September 1916 during the First World War. Three German U-boats sank 30 merchant ships between Beachy Head and the Eddystone. This was despite a major effort involving the Royal Navy and 49 destroyers, 48 torpedo boats, seven 'Q' ships and 468 auxiliaries. [12]

During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force (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. [13] The area had an important wartime radar station. During the Cold War, a radar control centre was operational in an underground bunker from 1953 to 1957. [3] On 20 May 1942, a Messerschmitt Bf 109 of JG26 piloted by Uffz. Oswald Fischer belly-landed on the beach due to flak damage. Fischer was taken prisoner, and the relatively undamaged plane was sent to RAE Farnborough for examination and evaluation. The plane was probably scrapped at the end of the war. [14]

Tourism

West from Belle Tout, the cliffs drop down to Birling Gap, then ascend through the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs to Haven Brow, overlooking the Cuckmere valley. The area is a popular tourist attraction. Birling Gap has a restaurant and, in the summer, multiple ice cream vans serve the area. There are many choices of walking routes.

Suicides

Phone box and sign advertising the Samaritans at Beachy Head. Beachy Head suicide phone.jpg
Phone box and sign advertising the Samaritans at Beachy Head.

Estimates of the number of annual deaths at Beachy Head vary from 20 a year to many more. [15] In 2010, it was the third most common suicide spot in the world, after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aokigahara Woods in Japan, according to The Wall Street Journal . [16]

The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team conducts regular day and evening patrols of the area in attempts to locate and stop potential cliff jumpers. Workers at the pub and taxi drivers are also on the lookout for people contemplating suicide and there are signs with the telephone number of the Samaritans urging potential jumpers to call them. [17]

Deaths at the site are often covered by the media, [18] and Ross Hardy, the founder of the chaplaincy team, has said that this encourages suicidal people to choose the site. [17] Eastbourne Borough Council drew media coverage in 2018 for its policy of removing shrines and crosses left at Beachy Head by families of suicide victims. [19]

The earliest reports of deaths by suicide at Beachy Head come from the 7th century. Between 1965 and 1979, there were 124 deaths at the location. Of these, S. J. Surtees wrote that 115 of them were "almost certainly" suicides (although a coroner's verdict of suicide was recorded in only 58 cases), and that 61 percent of the victims were from outside East Sussex. [18] After a steady increase in deaths between 2002 and 2005, there were only seven fatalities in 2006, a marked decrease. [20] The Maritime and Coastguard Agency, whose Coastguard Rescue Teams are responsible for the rescue of injured jumpers and the recovery of the dead, attributed the reduction to the work of the Chaplaincy Team and good coverage of services by the local media. [20] [21] At least 26 people died at the site in 2008. [22]

Use in entertainment and media

In film

The location Beachy Head has appeared in numerous films:

In literature and publications

In music

In television

In technology

A photo of Beachy Head [29] was used as a desktop wallpaper on Windows 7. [30]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastbourne Downland Estate</span>

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References

  1. ↑ "ALAN MACKENZIE".
  2. ↑ Cold, wet winter blamed for cliff collapse at Beachy Head, Michael McCarthy, The Independent, 5 April 2001 (retrieved 4 September 2020)
  3. 1 2 3 Surtees, Dr John (1997). Beachy Head. Seaford: SB Publications. ISBN   978-1-85770-118-0.
  4. ↑ Ekwall, Eilert (1960). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-869103-7.
  5. ↑ Times, 30 October 1929. P. 11
  6. ↑ Palmer, Roy (1986). The Oxford Book of Sea Songs . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-214159-0.
  7. ↑ Miller, Ben (28 March 2014). "Beachy Head Lady was young sub-Saharan Roman with good teeth, say archaeologists – Culture24". Archived from the original on 30 January 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
  8. ↑ "Centuries-old Beachy Head Lady's face revealed – BBC News". BBC Online . 1 February 2014. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
  9. ↑ Mintz, Zoe (4 February 2014). "Face Of 'Beachy Head Lady' Revealed, Roman Era Woman Is A 'Fantastic Discovery'". International Business Times . Retrieved 21 February 2017.
  10. ↑ "Story of Eastbourne celebrates first year with 23,000 visitors". 27 February 2020. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  11. ↑ Jack Blackburn (26 October 2023). "Plaque for first black Briton is shelved (she was from Cyprus)". The Times . Retrieved 26 October 2023. Parish councillors in the village of East Dean in East Sussex voted to remove the plaque
  12. ↑ Reagan, Geoffrey. Military Anecdotes (1992) pp. 118 & 119, Guinness Publishing ISBN   0-85112-519-0
  13. ↑ Ockenden, Michael (April 1983). "TV Pictures from Occupied Paris". After the Battle. Battle of Britain Prints International (39).
  14. ↑ Jackiewicz, Jacek (2007). Captured Me-109's. Poland: Atelier Kecay. p. 177. ISBN   9788392491408.
  15. ↑ "Suicide jump child 'already dead'". BBC News Online. BBC. 2 June 2009. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
  16. ↑ Meaney, Thomas (15 April 2006). "Exiting Early". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
  17. 1 2 Leitch, Luke. "Beachy Head: no ordinary beauty spot". The Times. 3 June 2009. Accessed 10 August 2011.
  18. 1 2 Surtees, S. J. "Suicide and accidental death at Beachy Head." (subscription required). British Medical Journal 284 (6312): 321–324. 30 January 1982.
  19. ↑ "Council bans families of suicide victims from leaving shrines at Beachy Head". The Telegraph. 23 May 2018.
  20. 1 2 "Beachy Head suicide numbers down". BBC News Online. BBC. 20 December 2006. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
  21. ↑ "Beachy Head Press Release". MCA Press Release. UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
  22. ↑ Smyth, Chris. "Man, woman and child found at foot of Beachy Head". The Times. 2 June 2009. Accessed 10 August 2011.
  23. ↑ "The Living Daylights (1987)" – via www.imdb.com.
  24. ↑ "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald at the Seven Sisters – filming location".
  25. ↑ 'Nature Near London' by Richard Jefferies was published by Chatto and Windus, in April 1883.
  26. ↑ "The Fox by Nada Surf Songfacts". www.songfacts.com.
  27. ↑ "New series of Luther comes to Beachy Head". www.eastbourneherald.co.uk. Archived from the original on 1 October 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  28. ↑ "Black Mirror Season 2, Episode 1". www.culturefly.com. 15 February 2013.
  29. ↑ "Beachy Head: England's Most Spectacular White Cliffs". Passport Collective. 4 October 2018. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  30. ↑ Trenholm, Richard. "Windows 7 world tour wallpapers". CNET. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
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