Our Blog - August 2025 - England trip - Birling Gap and Eastbourne

The Seven Sisters chalk cliffs have been changing for many thousands of years. This part of England was originally attached to France until sea levels rose and the English Channel was formed (a LONG LONG time ago). This is why you see the same type of white chalk cliffs on the French side. The chalk is quite soft and they are receding an average of 70 cm/27 inches per year due to waves, wind, rain, and ice. The "sisters" are the hills. You hopefully will be able to see that the walk along this cliff goes up and down these hills.

We didn't walk up and down all 7 hills but only up, down, then up, turned around and went down, up, down. Tried to get a good picture of Lucy but with the sun behind me, she kept squinting unless she was looking out towards the water.

We then headed to nearby Eastbourne, another seaside resort with a seafront lined by Victorian hotels, a pier, and a Napoleonic era fort and military museum. It isn't a tiny town ... the population is just over 100K. There are Roman remains buried beneath the town, a Roman bath, a Roman villa, and a section of a Roman road. Our first stop was the International Lawn Tennis Centre, which is where they hold a "warm-up" grass-court tournament a week before the start of Wimbledon. Martina Navratilova has won 11 singles titles here! The last American to win was Madison Keys in 2023.

Quite a few nice buildings here. These to me are especially nice, with the white carved detail running across the middle.

Similar to France, there are lots of War Memorials in England. This one is a bronze statue of the Angel of Victory standing atop a small globe surrounded with wreaths, wings upraised. In one hand, she holds a wreath, in the other, a downward pointing sword to make the sign of the cross. It was originally done in 1920 for those who died during WWI, but the inscription was updated to include WWII and additional conflicts since 1945.

The Eastbourne Pier looks pretty bland compared to the ones in Hastings and Brighton. It was built in 1872 and is approximately 300 meters long. The original pier entrance was swept away in 1877 and rebuilt. There have been several fires on the pier, including one in 2014, destroying the large arcade and saloons in the midway. The buildings were dismantled and it was created into an ‘Open Deck’ area. A local hotelier brought the pier in November 2015 and has renovated the pier, including re-painting, adding new benches to the open deck area and providing entertainment for visitors.

I remember growing up with Slush Puppies, so I was excited to see a Slush Puppy sign in town. The company was founded after the founder saw a slush-making machine at a Chicago trade fair in 1970. Slush Puppies arrived in the UK in 1974 when a businessman bought 3 Slush Puppy machines.

Near the Slush Puppy sign was this one outside of a Fish & Chips take-away store.

A Martello tower is a small defensive fort that was built across the coastline during the 19th century. They are 40 feet tall with 2 floors and would have 15-25 men there. The round structure and thick solid masonry walls made it resistant to cannon fire. They eventually became obsolete with the introduction of powerful rifled artillery. A total of 103 Martello towers were built in England, set at regular intervals along the coast.