Cuckmere Haven And The Seven Sisters – 25th December 2018
The Cuckmere Valley- seems this footpath is rather waterlogged.
So where does one begin a round Britain coastal tour? The most obvious start point is one close to our home town in, East Sussex. So on Christmas Day 2018 we park up at Seven Sisters Country Park and head down to the coast at Cuckmere Haven. We have brought Betty’s son Berty along with us, perhaps as a sort of good luck charm, but also as someone to verify when and where we actually began this venture.
This is an appropriate place to start, since the coast guard cottages overlooking the Severn Sisters are illustrated on Bill Bryson’s book “The Road to Little Dribbling.” We are currently on the opposite side of the Cuckmere Estuary from that most famous of views.
The coast guard cottages overlooking the Severn Sisters are illustrated on Bill Bryson’s book
We only moved to East Sussex 6 or 7 years ago, but I have been aware of the River Cuckmere since childhood. Its classic meanders appear in numerous geography text books. Having worked as a geography teacher for many years, I used to use it as a named example, but had never visited it in person. I have been here several times over the last 6 years.
In their lower courses, rivers often slow down and deposit their sediment in such a fashion that the river apparently starts to wander across the valley floor. The big loops that develop in its course are called meanders. These meanders are not fixed and it is possible to pick out their previous positions on the valley floor, from adjacent hill tops. Former meander loops can often be seen when the river valley is flooded.
Cut-off meander loops in the flooded River Cuckmere valley
The south coast of England has changed significantly over the last thousand years. William the Conqueror would not recognise it today. Back then the Lower Cuckmere was an estuary, with the sea inundating much of it on a regular basis. In the last few hundred years much of the coastal lowland has been reclaimed and drained to increase farmland. The river has been encased in a straight jacket, with large earthen banks thrown up along its course, to prevent it bursting its banks. Parts of it have even been fitted with a new, straight channel in order to get rid of upstream water more quickly.
Some people think the current Cuckmere Estuary should be preserved as it is, but in reality it is little more than a man-made engineering experiment, covered in grass. As we face the prospect of rapid climate change and sea level rising, keeping the Cuckmere in its present form would be an expensive indulgence, paid for by the tax-payer. The Environment Agency have decided that cost cannot be justified, so changes are afoot.
The most likely scenario is that the sea will be allowed to claim back what it rightfully owns. Periodic salt-water flooding will introduce salt-marsh habitat, dominated by plants such as sea blight, sea purslane, poor-man’s asparagus and sea aster. I just can’t wait!
Cuckmere Haven – the artificially enlarged beach
protects the Cuckmere Estuary
It is a pleasant day for a walk. It is quite mild and few people are out and about, preferring a lunch-time Christmas Dinner, rather than a walk along the coast. The path down to the sea is along a metalled path, with the close-cropped grass of the South Downs rising up either side of the valley.
As we arrive at the beach I am struck by the fact that it would be erroneous to suggest that a walk in the countryside is always a quiet and relaxing pastime. Today a brisk wind is whipping the sea into a frenzy, with 18 inch waves smashing down onto the pebble beach. The fore-wash alternates with the backwash, with pebbles dragged back down the beach and into the sea. As they descend, the sound of pebble on pebble is quite deafening.
The designated path runs along the top of the cliffs, but I have long wanted to try walking along the beach. However, as signs point out to the adventurous traveller, it is a 3 or 4 mile walk to the next exit point from the beach. You need to time such a walk to coincide with a falling tide, giving ample time to make Birling Gap before the sea returns.
Despite regular warnings about the instability of the chalk cliffs here, there are still some people having a festive picnic at the cliff base. A number of large angular chalk boulders litter the beach nearby, but the picnickers are blissfully unaware of the significance of this. I suppose there is an evolutionary benefit to it. Squashed picnickers will not be able to pass their foolishness genes onto their offspring, so in theory this foolishness gene will eventually be lost and all picnickers at the seaside will one day be 100% sensible. I’m not quite sure it works that way though.
Not wishing to witness carnage on Christmas Day, we climb the first of the Seven Sisters, being sure not to get too close to the edge. Footfall from nosey tourists and the ravages of the elements have led to erosion of the vegetation and soil at the cliff edge and I have no head for heights.
The walk up and down the first two or three of the chalk siblings increases our heart rate significantly, with our stomachs suggesting it is time for a lunch break. There is no shortage of places to sit at this particular restaurant, so we select a particularly comfortable piece of turf and banish the rumblings from below. The views are quite spectacular.
Our walk resumed, we soon find ourselves at Flagstaff Point and turn inland up Gap Bottom. This is a dry valley, which would have been carved into the chalk of the Downs when the climate was much colder – during the last Ice Age. Generally rainwater percolates into the porous chalk, with little sign of surface drainage, except during bouts of particularly heavy rainfall. Thousands of years ago the climate was wetter and intensely cold in winter. Permanent sub-surface ice known as ‘permafrost’ would have prevented downward percolation of water, with surface water streams carving the dry valley we are walking up today.
We have seen the last of the English coast for today, returning back to our car via Crowlink, Friston Forest and Westdean. It being Christmas Day, we decide to call in at the Plough and Harrow at Litlington to celebrate. The total distance walked today – a mere 8 miles – but it has set us up nicely for our Christmas Dinner and the countless miles that have yet to be ticked-off on our England Coast Path Adventure.