Seven Sisters and Birling Gap

Walking, landscape, and its impact on culture

Walking is a popular leisure activity in the UK. There are many public footpaths and signposted walking routes. Our walk covers a small part of the South Downs Way, a 160km trail that stretches through the South Downs National Park from Winchester to Eastbourne. This is what poet, Edward Thomas had to say about it in 1903:

I long to walk the chalk paths. Those long white roads are a temptation. What quests they propose. They take us away to the thin air of the future or to the underworld of the past.

Thomas's words remind us that the land can tell us things about the past, and that its continuity, and the small mark we make on it provides us with a link to the future.

The chalk from which the coastal cliffs are famously formed is made up of the compacted shells of small marine creatures that died 100 million years ago. The deep, warm seas that covered the area at the time meant that these creatures thrived and that their bodies sank, undisturbed by waves or currents to the sea floor (King H.M. n.d).

The cliffs are ancient and seem timeless, but chalk is a soft limestone, and the coastline is continually being eroded by the sea. The scale of this erosion has increased in recent years due to climate change and other human factors (Carrington. D, 2016)

It's easy to see why many artists and writers have responded to Southern England's rural landscapes by seeing chalk as a medium that can express ideas about time:

• Chalk Stones (Goldsworthy, A. 2002) 

This work by land artist Andy Goldsworthy, is a series of 14 sculpted chalk stones that mark out a walk in another part of the national park. An essay about the work on Weast Dean College website states that "Goldsworthy's use of these punctuation markers might indeed imply something of the strangeness of geological time." (Offsite Series #1, 2014)

Photo: Frances Lord

• White Chalk (Harvey, P.J. 2007) 

Lyrics:

White chalk hills are all I've known
White chalk hills will rot my bones
White chalk sticking to my shoes
White chalk playing as a child with you

White chalk south against time
White chalk cutting down the sea at Lyme
I walk the valleys by the Cerne
On a path cut 1500 years ago

And I know
These chalk hills will rot my bones

Dorset's cliffs meet at the sea
Where I walked our unborn child in me
White chalk gorse-scattered land

Scratch my palms
There's blood on my hands

• Chalk Fall (Dean, T. 2018)

"The drawing itself…depicts what could be the white cliffs of dover and the moment when the chalk collapses…In 2018 and before, the whole debate and agony of Brexit was raging, the collapse of the cliffs also resonated with the historic collapse of reason that happened in the United Kingdom" (Queensland Art Gallery, 2002 interview with Tacita Dean)

Tacita Dean: Chalk Fall, 2018. Chalk on blackboard 366 x 732 cm. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.

• Chalk Paths ( Ravilious, E. 1935)

Eric Ravilious: a very British artist

Interviewed for Margy Kinmouth's 2022 documentary about Eric Ravilious, playwright Alan Bennett, arguably one of the foremost authorities on Englishness, said:

I find it hard to say what it is to be English, but Ravilious is part of it.    - Alan Bennett, Eric Ravilious: Drawn to war (2022)

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) grew up in Eastbourne and went to the town's College of Art before continuing his studies at the Royal Academy in London. The nearby South Downs were often the subject of his woodcuts and watercolours. We know from his painting of Beachy Head that he would have walked along the same path that we will take up to Belle Tout lighthouse.

But what is it about Ravilious's work that, according to many commentators, makes it so British?

The subject of his works were often familiar, unassuming scenes with a quiet, undramatic beauty.

He was a chronicler of mid-century British life, whose subject matter is now seen as the epitome of traditional Englishness: tea on the lawn, cricket on the green, and keeping the home fires burning.            - D'Silva, B. 2002

But the calmness in his paintings and the knowledge that many of them were made just before the outbreak of war, give them a nostalgic quality, of a moment that is just about to be lost.

The fact that Ravilious was a war artist, and sadly died carrying out this job, adds to the collection of typically British themes in his work. 

Eastbourne 🎓

After our walk we have now arrived at the sunniest place in the UK!

Eastbourne Town is a typically British seaside destination. It is also known as 'God's Waiting Room' because of the many retirement homes and older residents living here. It is a popular destination for families because of the many things to see and do for all ages such as a theme park ('Treasure Island'), an indoor swimming paradise ('Sovereign Centre') and of course the beach. Eastbourne beach is a typical shingles beach* and is surrounded by many hotels, restaurants and pubs.

The beach's eye-catcher must be Eastbourne Pier. At the pier, you can find some more typical British places such as a fish & chips stand, an afternoon tearoom and an arcade. It has known some bad luck as the pier caught fire in 1970 and again in 2014. In 2015 Mr Sheikh Abid Gulzar bought the pier and started renovating it.

Although Eastbourne is called the sunniest place in the UK, it is still located in the UK where the weather can be quite cold and wet. But not to worry, there's still plenty to do on rainy days! You can visit the Lifeboat Museum, the Heritage Centre, the Towner, the arcades, the theatre or have the perfect excuse to have a pint at the pub.

DID YOU KNOW?

• The Blue Plaque Heritage Trail is a trail around Eastbourne where you can find many different blue plaques? On these blue plaques, you can find a famous name, their occupation and, when and why they were in Eastbourne. On this trail, you can discover when for example Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Eric Ravilious and Sherlock Holmes, among others, were here.
• It only takes 1h 25m to go from London to Eastbourne by train with tickets starting from £23?
• The French composer Claude Debussy wrote 'La Mer' at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne in 1905?
• Eastbourne has been the setting of several famous movie scenes such as Harry Potter, James Bond, Pearl Harbour, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging? And besides the cinemas, it has also been the setting of well-known TV shows like The Crown, Top Gear and Little Britain?
• Eastbourne has set not one but two Guinness World Records? 351 people walked across two metres of hot burning coal (quite an ironic fact knowing the history of the pier) and 28 girls fit themselves in a modern Mini Cooper.
• Rothesay International tennis tournament is held at Eastbourne's Devonshire Park yearly? Rothesay is an important tournament that is broadcasted on TV starring many famous players who are preparing themselves for Wimbledon by participating.

*a shingles beach is a beach made of pebbles and stones, not of sand.