Birling Gap

Birling Gap is in the news again, with part of the cluster of buildings which used to be the Birling Gap Hotel and is now a National Trust visitor centre being dismantled and moved back from the edge of the cliff. Which last advances north at a rate of something more than half a metre a year.

A story which originated from the Mail Online and which was brought to me by Microsoft Start when I turned on my laptop this morning. I found it difficult to get through the drone footage offered to some text, to get through the great mounds of advertisements and invitations to subscribe to this or that. The Mail Online seemed particularly bad in that respect. But I eventually dig my way through to some text to learn that 'The National Trust acquired Birling Gap in 1982 and added improvements such as a staircase to the beach, later taking on the hotel in 2012 and converting it into a cafe, shop, exhibition space and office'.

With the slightly different story that I remember being that the National Trust declined to sell or lease a bit of land to the then owners of the hotel so that they could do what the Trust is doing now. Then taking over the hotel and turning what had been a quirky and entertaining hotel - featuring the hop-festooned Oak Room restaurant - very busy Sunday lunchtimes - into a rather anodyne visitor centre. They may have done much the same thing at the Devil's Punchbowl near Hindhead.

The text also told of a planning application to the planning part of the South Downs National Park Authority, so I thought that might be a better source of authoritative information than the Mail Online. To find myself at an elaborate website (reference 2) from where I dig down to the search planning page (reference 3). No less than three applications for the hotel, with the one about demolition including no less than eighteen documents, mostly with names in planning-speak. Of which, after a few duds, the one called 'Delegated Report' seemed to be the right place to start, top snapped above, helpful location map snapped below.

For the avoidance of doubt, north at the top in the usual way. Beachy Head off snap to the right. With the bit to be demolished in purple. There is also a fair bit about bats and about rights of way.

For those with appetite for more, the study at reference 4 makes interesting reading and has some striking illustrations of the retreating cliffs. Another of the eighteen documents mentioned above.

While back in the tourist part of the (South Downs) website there looks to be plenty of stuff about Birling Gap in general. Maybe even something about the history of the beach as a tripping destination in days of old and of the hotel perched on top of the cliff - but I have not got that far yet.

There was also a local newspaper which seemed to know about the business, but like the Mail Online, that was more or less buried in advertisements and invitations to subscribe, spend or both. I did not get very far.

All of which goes to show that you can find stuff out without leaving the comfort of your laptop - but you do have to work at it a bit.

PS: regular readers may recall that we once abstracted a fine slab of flint from the beach, only reading the notice about it being forbidden a bit late in the day. It now anchors part of the brick walk down our back garden.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/birling-gap.html. The most recent notice of Birling Gap, with a thin scatter of notices to be found in earlier volumes. 

Reference 2: https://www.southdowns.gov.uk/.

Reference 3: https://planningpublicaccess.southdowns.gov.uk/online-applications/. 'birling gap hotel' in the keyword bit of the search seems to do the business.

Reference 4: Birling gap sea-level change and cliff retreat study - Vincent May - 2016.

Reference 5: https://www.birlinggapsussex.co.uk/. [later] Lots of good stuff here.