Beachy Head, Sussex
Historical Description
Beachy Head, a promontory on the coast of Sussex, at the end of the South Downs, 2¼ miles SSE of Eastbourne. Its summit has an altitude of 575 feet above sea-level, and commands a view from Hastings to the Isle of Wight, and across the channel to France. Its front and sea-skirts are precipitous, and pierced with caverns, the resort of multitudes of sea-fowl. Shipwrecks here and in the vicinity used to be frequent and dreadful, but have been less numerous since the erection of the Belle Toute Lighthouse in 1831. This stands on a projecting skirt of the promontory, and shows a revolving light, at the height of 285 feet above the sea, flashing every 2 minutes, and visible at the distance of 22 miles. On the 30 June, 1690, the combined English and Dutch fleets of fifty-six sail, under Lord Torrington, were defeated within sight of Beachy Head, by the French fleet of eighty-two sail, under thc Count dc Jourville. A winding carriage road, called the " Duke's Drive," having been constructed at the expense of the Duke of Devonshire, gives access to it. A coastguard station is posted on the Head.
Maps
Online maps of Beachy Head are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Sussex newspapers online: