The South Downs National Park is England's newest National Park, having become fully operational on 1st April 2011.
The park, covering an area of 1,627 square kilometres (628 sq mi) in southern England, stretches for 140 kilometres (87 mi) from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex.
The national park covers the chalk hills of the South Downs (which on the English Channel coast form the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head) and a substantial part of a separate physiographic region, the western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and vales.
It is also my home patch.
The world famous landmark is the Seven Sisters (owned by the National Trust) which is a series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel. They form part of the SDNP, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England.
They are the remnants of dry valleys in the chalk South Downs, which are gradually being eroded by the sea at about 30-40cm per year. In 2016 about 4,000 tonnes collapsed into the sea.
Starting at the Cuckmere Valley, left to right (west to east) the peak names are:
- Haven Brow
- Short Brow
- Rough Brow
- Brass Point
- Flat Hill
- Bailey's Hill
- Went Hill.
During the winter months the weather can get a little wild, with seas breaking over the lighthouse at Newhaven.
The Newhaven lifeboat is a welcome sight for those in trouble.
Seaford town used to have a sea wall which protected the town from flooding. In the 1980’s this wall was deteriorating and the town flooded on occasions.
It was decided to build up the beach shingle to the top level of the old sea wall to absorb the power of the waves.
During autumn & spring storms, shingle on the beach is seriously eroded and a fleet of six earthmovers, two bulldozers and a digger take shingle from Newhaven and deposit it back to Seaford. The whole thing takes about three weeks.
In addition every few years, shingle is dredged and transported from the sea-bed (often from near the Isle of Wight about 90 miles away) and blown onto the beach with powerful pumps and water jets.
