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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.

The Lighthouse under the cliff

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 Britain's most notorious (and probably most often used) suicide spot.^{[citation needed]}

The chalk was formed in the Cretaceous period when the area was under the sea, 65 million years ago. During the Cenozoic Era the chalk was uplifted, and was later eroded to form the dramatic cliffs of the Sussex coast. Much of the grandeur of the cliffs was lost in 2001 when, after a winter of heavy rains, its main distinguishing feature, a chalk pinnacle known as the Devil's Chimney, collapsed into the sea.

The name appears as Beauchef in 1274, 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.

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 Because its light could not be seen in mist and low cloud, it was superseded by a newer lighthouse, 43m in height, built in the sea below Beachy Head and operational from October 1902.^[1] Until the lighthouse was fully automated in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]

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 War of the Grand Alliance. 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]

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.

Flowers laid at the cliff edge.

Beachy Head is notorious as a location for people to attempt suicide. 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 7 fatalities, a reduction attributed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to the actions of the Chaplaincy Team and local media^[4].

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.

20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle

• Story has it that 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 up like nice-guys for the album's cover photo. Although the LP cover seems quite pleasant, the band is standing on Beachy Head cliff.

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