The chalk that runs across southern England for a hundred and fifty kilometres ends at Eastbourne, and it ends spectacularly. Beachy Head, immediately west of the town, is the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain, standing about 162 metres above a red and white lighthouse that looks like a toy from the top. West of it the cliff line breaks into the Seven Sisters — seven chalk headlands with six dry valleys between them, running for six kilometres to the mouth of the Cuckmere.
There is nothing else quite like it in England. It is also a working landscape of grazed downland, an eroding coastline, and a place that needs to be treated with a good deal of respect.
The Downs run east-west across Sussex and are cut off by the sea at their eastern end, which is why the cliffs exist: each Sister is the truncated end of a chalk ridge, and each dip between them is a dry valley cut when the chalk was frozen and water could not soak in.
From east to west the sequence is: Eastbourne seafront, then the climb past Holywell onto the Downland; Beachy Head with its lighthouse; Belle Tout, the older lighthouse on the clifftop, which was moved bodily seventeen metres inland in 1999 as the cliff retreated beneath it; Birling Gap, the one break where you can reach the beach; then the Seven Sisters themselves; and finally Cuckmere Haven, where the river reaches an undeveloped shingle beach opposite Seaford Head.
Five kilometres from the pier, an hour and a half on foot. The route climbs from the western end of the promenade at Holywell up onto the Downland and out along the clifftop, with the town dropping away behind and the whole sweep of the coast opening ahead. It is a steady climb, entirely on grass and path, and it is the classic Eastbourne walk.
A further three and a half kilometres of clifftop past Belle Tout, mostly level with a long descent at the end. The National Trust visitor centre and café at Birling Gap are the only facilities on the route, and there are steps down to the beach.
Birling Gap to Cuckmere Haven, six kilometres, and considerably harder than the map suggests. You climb and descend each of the Sisters in turn, and there is no shortcut, no shelter, no water and no way off the route in the middle. Allow three hours and take more water than you think you need.
If the Sisters are too much, the Seven Sisters Country Park at Exceat, eight kilometres from Eastbourne, gives the same landscape without the climbing: a level walk of about three kilometres down the Cuckmere valley beside the meanders to the beach, with the Sisters rising to your right. It is pushchair-friendly for most of its length and it is the single best introduction to this coast.
For the photograph — the one of the Seven Sisters with the coastguard cottages in the foreground — you need to be on the western side of the Cuckmere, on Seaford Head. It is a short steep walk from Seaford, thirteen kilometres from Eastbourne, and reachable by train.
This is where a guide has to be direct.
The cliff edge is not stable. Chalk falls happen without warning, and large falls take metres of clifftop with them. There is no fence for most of the route, the grass runs right to the edge, and the overhang is invisible from above. Stay well back — several metres, not one.
The beach below is equally dangerous. At Birling Gap and along the base of the Sisters, rockfall is a real and frequent hazard. Do not sit or shelter at the foot of the cliff, and take the warning signs seriously.
Tides cut people off. The beach below the Sisters is not continuous at high water and there is no way up. Check the tide before walking along the base.
Weather. The clifftop is exposed to everything. Wind on the edge is a genuine hazard, and low cloud removes the entire reason for being there. Chalk grassland is extremely slippery when wet.
Beachy Head also has a long and sad association as a place people come to end their lives. The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team patrols the clifftop, and if you are struggling, or you are worried about someone on the cliff, the Samaritans can be reached free at any hour on 116 123.
On foot from Eastbourne, as above.
By bus, the seafront service runs up to Beachy Head and along the cliff road to Birling Gap and East Dean in season, including an open-top service that is worth taking for its own sake. It also serves Exceat for the Country Park.
By car, there are car parks at Beachy Head, Belle Tout, Birling Gap and Exceat. The free Downland car parks at Heathy Brow and Warren Hill on the Beachy Head road are the ones locals use. Birling Gap’s National Trust car park is free to members and is the first to fill.
A recurring complaint from visitors: on hot summer weekends the Birling Gap visitor centre and car park are overwhelmed. Go early, go midweek, or take the bus.
Early morning for the light on the cliffs and an empty clifftop. Late afternoon and evening in summer, when the low sun turns the chalk gold and the day visitors have gone. Winter for drama and solitude, with the caveat that the wind up there is serious.
Spring brings downland flowers and skylarks; late summer brings the best of the sea light; autumn brings migrating birds along the coast, and Beachy Head is a well-known watch point.
Belle Tout lighthouse, the 1832 clifftop light, now a small hotel, and the subject of the famous 1999 move inland.
Beachy Head lighthouse, the red and white one at the foot of the cliff, built in 1902 and visible from the top.
The Beachy Head Story, a small visitor centre and café at the clifftop car park.
Downland grazing, wildflowers, skylarks and, in places, the chalk grassland that is one of the rarest habitats in Europe.
Two lighthouses, and the story of why there are two is the story of the cliff itself.
Belle Tout was built on the clifftop in 1832. It was a sound idea in principle and a poor one in practice: at 150 metres up it spent a great deal of its life inside low cloud, invisible to exactly the ships that needed it. It was decommissioned in 1902, shelled for target practice during the Second World War, restored as a private house, and in 1999 — with the cliff edge advancing towards it — the entire building was jacked up and moved seventeen metres inland on greased rails. It is now a small hotel.
Beachy Head lighthouse, the red and white striped one at the foot of the cliff, replaced it in 1902 and sits where a lighthouse ought to, below the cloud line. It was automated in 1983 and its distinctive stripes were repainted after a public fundraising campaign in 2013 when Trinity House proposed letting them fade. You cannot visit it, but the view down onto it from the clifftop is the picture everyone takes at Beachy Head.
The chalk grassland here is one of the rarest habitats in Europe and supports a remarkable density of life for ground that looks like plain turf. Skylarks sing over it from spring; there are orchids, round-headed rampion — the Sussex county flower — and a long list of chalk-specific butterflies including the chalkhill blue and the adonis blue.
The cliffs themselves hold fulmars, and peregrines nest along this coast. In autumn Beachy Head becomes one of the best migration watch points in southern England, with birds funnelling along the coast before crossing the Channel. Sheep graze the Downland, which is what keeps the turf short and the flowers going — leave gates as you find them and keep dogs under close control.
About 162 metres — the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain.
Around three hours for the six kilometres from Birling Gap to Cuckmere Haven, with continuous ascent and descent.
At Birling Gap, by steps, and at Cuckmere Haven. There is no other access along this stretch.
Yes, from Eastbourne seafront along the cliff road in season, including an open-top service.
Seaford Head, on the western side of the Cuckmere, looking back at the Sisters with the coastguard cottages in front.