The lighthouse at Beachy Head just to the west of the town of Eastbourne, East Sussex is a well known and well photographed landmark. Naturally there is no shortage of postcards of the lighthouse and the cliffs, but this one is probably one of the finest I have seen.
This postcard was published by Valentines, but I don’t know when, probably around 1910-20. The postcard has a divided back, which dates it after 1902, which doesn’t really help because that is when the lighthouse was constructed.
This lighthouse was built as a replacement for an earlier lighthouse which stood up on the cliff top (rather than at sea level) and slightly further to the west at Belle Tout. The lighthouse was automated in 1983 and still warns off shipping, at the same time as attracting hundreds of sightseers to the cliffs above.
