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[Sussex] Birling Gap cliff rock slide



knocky1

Well-known member
Jan 20, 2010
12,937
Looks pretty severe. Especially from that perspective. Glad nobody was there when it went.

Exactly but it’s incredible there.
E39F070F-68C3-4F5B-B648-BDB5531E7889.jpeg

Met this environmentalist down there who spends days/weeks down there. Bhassexplore.com
439189A6-E018-48D4-B847-7FD1749ADDF4.jpeg
 

Sorrel

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
2,733
Back in East Sussex
Back in the 1990s I used to walk fairly often round under the cliffs from Birling Gap round to Eastbourne and back, paying a lot of attention to the tide before setting off. It's really lovely there, but not an easy walk. There was always a range of ages on the fallen chalk, but this fall seems bigger than things I normally saw then.

What's the rate of erosion I wonder?
 


knocky1

Well-known member
Jan 20, 2010
12,937
Ooh, what's he doing there?

https://www.bhassexplore.com/

Collecting tons of plastic and having it taken out by boat every few months. He’s done 3 driftwood sculptures, a centre of the universe pyramid. Sleeps in the caves 😲 and has a Lara Croft dressed assistant. It’s a different world!

I recommend the walk. Have to plan around low tide and allow 3 hours from edge of Eastbourne.
https://www.beachyheadlighthouse.co.uk/walking-to-the-beachy-head-lighthouse/
 


Wardy's twin

Well-known member
Oct 21, 2014
8,377
That is a cracking link. I'm pretty sure that chalk path in the foreground is the one that's just gone over the edge :eek:

Turn through 90° and that's the belle vue lighthouse B&B, I wouldn't try and book beyond Friday night :wink:

look down at the ground and see the shadow of the alien that made this
 

Eric the meek

Fiveways Wilf
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Aug 24, 2020
5,106
Back in the 1990s I used to walk fairly often round under the cliffs from Birling Gap round to Eastbourne and back, paying a lot of attention to the tide before setting off. It's really lovely there, but not an easy walk. There was always a range of ages on the fallen chalk, but this fall seems bigger than things I normally saw then.

What's the rate of erosion I wonder?

58 cm a year at Birling Gap:

https://www.groundsure.com/resources/coastal-retreat-at-birling-gap/

22-32 cm a year at Seaford Head and Beachy Head


https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/175967/cliff-erosion-rates-sussex-have-accelerated/
 

WATFORD zero

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 10, 2003
25,549
the-history-of-birling-gap-1937.jpg

I believe there's only the three leftmost terraced houses left now (together with the cafe on the far left of the pic) Everything in the foreground is long gone.
 


Wardy's twin

Well-known member
Oct 21, 2014
8,377

i watched a documentary about erosion on the east coast , a guy bought a place 30 metres from the edge based on the previous average erosion which was a metre a year giving him 30 years. he had no family and was 60+ and thought that would do him. The year after he bought it the cliff was eroded by 30 metres and his house with it. Whilst the averages a good stat they are not rules that nature follows.
 

Eric the meek

Fiveways Wilf
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Aug 24, 2020
5,106
i watched a documentary about erosion on the east coast , a guy bought a place 30 metres from the edge based on the previous average erosion which was a metre a year giving him 30 years. he had no family and was 60+ and thought that would do him. The year after he bought it the cliff was eroded by 30 metres and his house with it. Whilst the averages a good stat they are not rules that nature follows.

That's a very good point. That bloke was seriously unlucky though. These events are, in geographic terms, episodic. I remember reading about a water hole that pre-Roman farmers dug in the chalk hills a good kilometre from the cliffline. It has now been eroded away, so the long term rate of erosion (yes, I know, I'm making assumptions here), is 1km+ in 2000+ years. That rate can change of course.
 



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