Three Days in Sussex — Day 2
Beachy Head and Seven Sisters
East of Hastings, along the coast, is a high chalk cliff known as Beachy Head and immediately to the east of Beachy Head is the Seven Sisters. Beachy Head is the highest chalk cliff in Britain, rising to over 530 feet above sea level. From the peak you have terrific views in both directions along the coast. Beachy Head has been featured in sea shanties about how to navigate the English Channel since the 17th century, including the most famous Spanish Ladies. The area immediately along the coast is part of the Eastbourne Downland Estate, an area of about 4,100 acres of the south coastal range that was purchased by the public in an act of Parliament in 1926. Today, the Estate is part of the South Downs National Park and is designated as Heritage Coast. The area is also designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) as part of the Sussex Downs. At one point in 2017 there was a pretty strong debate about the potential sale of four farms in the Estate which ultimately ended up in a decision not to sell and to keep the Estate intact.
The Seven Sisters from the vicinity of Beachy Head. (c) 2020, EnglandForAllReasons.com
Looking east from Beachy Head you can, on a good day, see all the Seven Sisters, a series of chalk cliffs. The sisters are the peaks as the land goes up and down over seven hills. These cliffs are very visible from the Channel for ships as well as for aircraft in the air. They serve as an excellent navigation feature. There is also a lighthouse at Beachy Head, built in the water to be close to the surface as well as another, older lighthouse a bit up the cliff at Belle Tout. The Seven Sisters are often used in films as stand-ins for the White Cliffs of Dover as they are relatively free of any modern development that would be anachronistic in an historical movie.
There are excellent walking paths in the area of the Estate, as well as a road that leads to a small tourist center at Beachy Head from which you can see the Seven Sisters. The day we visited there was a bit overcast and rainy, but you can see from our photos that even on a less-than-perfect day the view is breathtaking.
Rudyard Kipling’s desk at Batemans. (c) 2020 EnglandForAllReasons.com
Before leaving this area, to the northeast of Beachy Head is Bateman’s, a 17th-century house located in Burwash, East Sussex. It was the home of Rudyard Kipling from 1902 until his death in 1936. The house was originally built in 1634 and is now part of the National Trust. The house is kept as it would have looked when Kipling lived there, even with manuscripts on his writing desk and a trash can full of crumpled up sheets of paper. If you are a Kipling fan, it is a very lovely place to visit and a pleasant way to spend half a day. The gardens are quite lovely, by all reports but the day we visited it was pouring rain, so we concentrated on the house itself.
That’s a pretty full day—walking the beautiful area of Beachy Head and Bateman’s with associated gardens.
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