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00:01Rock lighthouses.
00:03No matter what the sea throws at them, they stand firm.
00:08This is awesome.
00:09Join me for a voyage to the last outposts of civilization.
00:14Oh, come on.
00:16Where you need to invent your way out of trouble if you want to survive.
00:20They got the radar to work through an upturned bicycle handle.
00:25He was listening to his daughter playing piano
00:28and came up with this concept of a foghorn.
00:32I mean, these are absolute game changers.
00:33It's a story of adventure.
00:36This coastline is epic.
00:38Just look at the scale of these cliffs and these rocks.
00:41And danger.
00:43I turned around to see the wave. I thought we were done for.
00:46We'll discover how they were designed.
00:48This really was a stroke of genius.
00:52And meet their hidden heroes.
00:54There was this absolute sense of mission.
00:57The night stays lit come what may.
01:00These are the secrets of some of the most extraordinary structures ever built.
01:06This time, I head into deadly waters known as the Mariner's Graveyard.
01:12Rough seas, darkness, storms.
01:16Really, really scary.
01:17To uncover a centuries-old secret that could sink the reputation of a local legend.
01:24They weren't above wounding or killing people who got in their way.
01:28And come face to face with a ticking time bomb.
01:32There's a moment here of deep fear.
01:34Everybody's a little bit worried that they're gonna push the rest of the cliff back over into the sea.
01:38This is the story of Beachy Head.
01:52I'm taking to the English Channel to discover one of Britain's most famous lighthouses.
02:00Although you wouldn't necessarily know it from the view out there,
02:04just two miles in that direction is the busiest shipping lane in the world.
02:10More than 400 cargo vessels pass through here every day.
02:15It's like the M25 for container ships.
02:17But where I am, much closer to shore,
02:21well, these are some of the most treacherous waters along Britain's south coast.
02:25You can see why you'd need a lighthouse along this stretch of coastline.
02:32And there she is.
02:34The last rock lighthouse to be built in English waters.
02:39Beachy Head.
02:45It is one of the most iconic lighthouses in the British Isles.
02:51Its magnificent red and white granite tower rises 141 feet out of the water,
02:57like a giant chess piece emerging from the sea.
03:09Unlike many rock lighthouses, you can actually walk there from the mainland.
03:15When the tide withdraws, a secret pathway is revealed.
03:20So a chance for me to get up close and personal.
03:25But clambering over these razor sharp, craggy rocks
03:29isn't for the faint-hearted.
03:32It is, however, worth the risk.
03:37I'm feeling a childlike excitement as I'm coming up this close to the lighthouse.
03:47Look at that.
03:49Beautiful.
03:51I feel really insignificant and really small stood next to the lighthouse.
03:56My word, when you're up this close.
03:59I feel like an ant.
04:05Built in 1902, Beachy Head Lighthouse is named after the massive cliff that stands behind it.
04:13Located three and a half miles west of Eastbourne on the Sussex coast.
04:19It stands guard over a stretch of water that has been connecting Britain with the rest of the world for
04:26thousands of years.
04:30The English Channel is one of the world's great shipping avenues.
04:34It's been used by ships to carry goods between Europe and England since before recorded history.
04:42We know that in the early Roman period, the English are trading across the Channel.
04:47They're buying wine from the Europeans.
04:49They're trading grain.
04:51So it's food, it's drink, it's metals, anything of value.
04:56Trade is about value.
04:58And the Channel evolves very rapidly into a critical trade artery.
05:02Not just for the English.
05:04Everybody who wants to trade with the world from North-East Europe has to go down the Channel.
05:09And that makes it a very dense maritime environment.
05:15Dense and deadly.
05:18Unwary sailors navigating these waters would quickly find themselves in trouble.
05:24Today's technology shows us why.
05:29Permission to come up front?
05:30Absolutely, come on board.
05:31That's very much.
05:33Now, I mean, I do notice you've got a fair amount of modern equipment on board here.
05:37Well, the equipment is invaluable.
05:39It gives us an indication of the ground below us, how the ground is made up.
05:43But this gives you a really good idea about what's beneath the water, what you can't see.
05:47Yes.
05:48Yes.
05:49So, for example, wrecks.
05:50Shipwrecks.
05:51Perfect for finding shipwrecks on the screen.
05:53Well, those white squares, they're all shipwrecks?
05:56Yes.
05:56Yeah, god my word, they're all over.
05:58Yeah.
05:59That's correct.
05:59Yeah, so many littered with wrecks.
06:01It strikes me, without this kind of technology,
06:05as you say, going back a hundred odd years or so,
06:07it must have been really difficult to navigate through that,
06:09and you could understand why collisions might happen.
06:12I don't know how anyone did it back in the day when this wasn't available.
06:15Especially, you know, rocky outcrops like we have here at Beachy Head.
06:19Rough seas, big tides, darkness, storms.
06:23It would have been a very, very perilous undertaking.
06:26I would choose a different career, I think.
06:29The dangers that lurk here are all hidden from view
06:32and have been millions of years in the making.
06:40Before the Ice Age, Britain was actually connected to mainland Europe
06:44by a land bridge.
06:46Now, this ridge of chalk was actually holding back a vast lake.
06:52At the end of the Ice Age, as the ice melted,
06:55this huge lake overtopped the chalk ridge,
06:58breaking through it entirely, creating the English Channel
07:01as we know it today.
07:05This process of flooding created all of these different types of shapes
07:09on the bed of the sea floor, which create turbulence,
07:12which creates hazards for any ships trying to navigate the channel.
07:18Sailing near Beachy Head is a challenge for even the most experienced sailor.
07:28Hidden beneath these waters is a shallow reef,
07:31whose rocks are just waiting to dash the holes of unsuspecting ships.
07:38And on top of all of that, a sudden change in sea depth,
07:42from very deep to very shallow, creates powerful tidal currents and swells
07:48that'll quite happily sweep any unwary skipper straight onto those rocks.
07:54Anyone who managed to reach the shore
07:56then became trapped by the near vertical cliff face,
08:01helpless as the tide rose to claim them.
08:09Without today's navigational tools,
08:12mariners of old were sailing blind amongst these hidden perils.
08:16Each journey, a bit of a lottery.
08:21There's no wonder this stretch of coastline
08:23was once known as a mariner's graveyard.
08:27We know there were at least 60 wrecks in the Beachy Head area
08:31in the age of sail.
08:32In the 1560s, there's a ship called the Greyhound,
08:35which is a Royal Navy warship, which is wrecked in that area.
08:39It's quite a big ship.
08:41It's quite a significant loss.
08:42So the biggest problem for the pre-modern era,
08:45for survival of life at sea,
08:47is that sailors don't learn to swim.
08:50There won't be a lifeboat to come out and rescue you.
08:53So your chances of getting off a shipwreck are very, very low.
09:04Just three miles from Beachy Head lies evidence of the terrible power of these seas
09:10during the 16 and 1700s.
09:14For centuries, this peaceful churchyard has been the final resting place for shipwreck victims at Beachy Head.
09:23And the unenviable task of burying those lost at sea fell to the local vicar,
09:29Parson Jonathan Darby.
09:33As vicar, he tended to the spiritual needs of a community that suffered tragedies at sea.
09:40What we look at with Parson Darby and his community is there's a clear sense in which this is a
09:46problem area
09:47where ships are being wrecked, lives are being lost.
09:49And the religious revival of the 18th century says you really ought to do more to save these unfortunate mariners.
09:57Calls for a lighthouse to be constructed had been repeatedly ignored by the authorities.
10:04Horrified by this loss of life and lack of civic action,
10:08Parson Darby took matters into his own hands.
10:11Now, his solution was simple but effective and would become Beachy Head's first ever lighthouse.
10:30For centuries, these seas around Beachy Head have served as a shipping superhighway,
10:37bringing trade and riches from right across the globe.
10:41Here to our shores.
10:45Sailing close to Beachy Head meant taking your life in your own hands.
10:51By the end of the 17th century, shipwrecks were such a common occurrence
10:56that the locals would sleep with their doors open on stormy nights
11:00on the chance they might hear a wreck.
11:05Their cries for a warning system had been repeatedly ignored.
11:09So an eccentric vicar named Parson Darby decided to act.
11:16His solution became Beachy Head's first lighthouse.
11:22I'm quite keen to explore a bit more about what Parson Darby's beacon was.
11:28What exactly was it?
11:29Legend has it that it was a cave that Parson Darby dug out with his own hands,
11:34which he fashioned with an area for a bed and somewhere to hang his lamp.
11:38So sailors would have known that there was land there.
11:40But also, if there were sailors in difficulty, they would know that there was shelter there.
11:45So it was fairly rudimentary then, what he said.
11:48It's a hole in the cliffs with a light.
11:51Exactly.
11:51Absolutely right.
11:52Yeah, it was simple and it worked.
11:54We lost the cave many years ago to coastal erosion, but we know that it was in this area.
11:59Have we got any idea of what this cave would have looked like?
12:02Well, actually, we do.
12:04I just happened to have here a picture of the original Parson Darby's Hole.
12:08Oh, wicked. This is Parson Darby's Hole.
12:09And we can see two boys posing in front of the cave, which gives an idea of its scale and
12:14its size.
12:15Yes, it does. It absolutely does.
12:18It was about 20 feet above the beach.
12:20So it was above the high water mark and there were steps that led up to the cave so that
12:25you could get up to safety.
12:28Parson Darby set his fixed lights on a ledge, providing both warning and welcome.
12:35He would then sit night after night inside the cave, ready to help any struggling sailor.
12:44One account tells of a Dutch ship that went down just off the rocks here.
12:49Parson Darby rescued 12 men that night, all of them finding refuge in his cave.
12:57I mean, it's a cliche, but we are talking about dark, stormy nights here.
13:01Oh, indeed, yeah. And that just shows his dedication, his commitment to saving sailors' lives.
13:05100%. Because now that we're around here and I get a sense of how isolated we are,
13:10it just goes to show the bravery of the man.
13:12Oh, absolutely. Underneath the chalk cliffs, exposed on a stormy night,
13:17to put himself in danger in order to try to save the lives of others is really quite something.
13:29By taking matters into his own hands, Parson Darby saved the lives and livelihoods of countless mariners passing through the
13:38channel.
13:39But some have speculated that the Parson's motivation wasn't exactly what it seemed.
13:47His mission could have been covering a dark secret.
13:52This whole area of the Sussex coastline was a hotspot for smuggling.
13:56It could be things like tea, coffee, silk, we know that gin and brandy were smuggled in.
14:03And that was because all of these goods were really highly taxed,
14:07so smugglers could sell them on and make quite a lot of money.
14:10When I think of smuggling in the UK, I'm thinking Cornwall and Devon.
14:16How prevalent was smuggling in this area along the coastline here?
14:20We know that there were hundreds of people locally that were involved or implicated in smuggling here.
14:27Coast Guards might have been bribed.
14:29It could have been local public house owners who were maybe buying smuggled goods.
14:35We might look kind of lightheartedly at some of these illegal activities,
14:40but there could be some quite sinister people involved in this, I imagine.
14:46Yeah, absolutely.
14:47I mean, they weren't above wounding or killing people who got in their way.
14:51What kind of punishments might those who were caught by the authorities face?
14:56If you were smuggling something in the sort of medieval period,
14:59then it would be a case of you having your hand chopped off and nailed somewhere prominent.
15:04Oh, wow.
15:05Later on, we know that smugglers from Eastbourne were sentenced to death,
15:10but it was later changed to transportation,
15:11so they were sent to Australia for the rest of their lives.
15:16So it's serious, serious punishment.
15:19Yeah.
15:19The majority of people obviously felt this was worth that risk.
15:23Yeah, I mean, times would have been quite hard for a lot of people,
15:26so if you were sure you could get away with it, then it may have been worth a go.
15:34In times of austerity, the locals may have had another reason for keeping their doors open at night,
15:41to listen out for wrecked ships.
15:47In 1747, a Spanish warship captured by the English floundered on the rocks here.
15:53The Nympha Americana was carrying a valuable cargo, including £5,000 worth of gold.
16:00That's around £800,000 in today's money.
16:05So what happened to all those kids?
16:07Well, a lot of them were snatched by people living locally,
16:10who raced down to the beach and stole them.
16:14We know of one story where one of the soldiers stole some of the gold,
16:19and the only reason he was found out was because he'd hidden it in his boot,
16:23and his boot was too heavy to lift over when he was trying to get back on his horse.
16:27Ha-ha! Brilliant!
16:31It wasn't just the soldiers and townsfolk.
16:34There are rumours that our parson Derby may have had a second calling down on the beach.
16:40There is another story that actually he was maybe working with the smugglers,
16:46or at least helping them by having a light in the cave there,
16:49either signalling that it was safe to come ashore,
16:52or even just as somewhere safe that the smugglers could shelter
16:56if they also got into danger at sea.
16:59The thing is, we will never know.
17:02In some ways, it doesn't really matter what his motivation was.
17:04The fact is that he was saving lives.
17:07Yeah, absolutely. He would have had a huge difference,
17:09whichever story you believe.
17:14Parson Derby's dedication to saving lives at sea eventually took its toll.
17:23After years of sitting it out in the freezing cold,
17:26he caught pneumonia.
17:28It proved to be fatal.
17:32Parson Derby's final resting place is amongst the graves of the sailors he buried,
17:37the men who inspired him to take action in the first place.
17:42Now, we'll never know how many lives were saved,
17:45but his legacy is written here on his tombstone.
17:50Here lies the body of Parson Derby.
17:54He was a sailor's friend.
18:02There are no records of anyone taking over from Derby after his death.
18:10Despite the continued loss of life on the rocks below beachy head,
18:14it would be another hundred years before a replacement lighthouse was built.
18:20This time, the lighthouse would be constructed not in the rock face,
18:24but up high on top of the cliffs.
18:29In 1829, Trinity House, the organisation responsible for building and operating lighthouses in England and Wales,
18:37started work on a permanent lighthouse at Beachy Head.
18:42And here it is!
18:44Bell 2 Lighthouse!
18:48Designed by renowned lighthouse architects James Walker and William Hallett,
18:54Bell 2 took five years to build and was first lit on the 11th of October 1834.
19:01At a humble 45 feet, this wasn't the tallest lighthouse in the country,
19:06but its position up here on the cliff top meant that its lamps were a staggering 530 feet above sea
19:15level.
19:22Not only well positioned, but in the 19th century, this lighthouse was the height of modernity,
19:29fitted out with the latest in cutting-edge technology.
19:34These days, it's a bed and breakfast, and I'm able to take a peek inside and see how it operated
19:40back in the day.
19:43Right, we're in.
19:48I'm going to make the executive decision to go up.
19:53It's a classic tell-tale sign that you're in a lighthouse, the thickness of these walls.
19:58I think you only really see these elsewhere in castles and keeps.
20:03But it's defending against the forces of Mother Nature.
20:06What's in there?
20:10So we're near the top here now.
20:12And this is the room allocated to the keeper on duty at any one time.
20:17And I've heard there's a little quirk up in the ceiling.
20:20Look, see if I can see them.
20:23There we go.
20:24I've got three holes that look straight up into the most important part of the lighthouse.
20:30The lantern room.
20:31And the purpose of that was to allow the keeper, from the comfort of his own bed,
20:37to look and make sure that all the lanterns were lit and that everything was as it should be.
20:46I'm taking the more traditional way of viewing the lantern room.
20:50Here we go.
20:53Oh, come on.
20:56This is unreal.
20:58I can see for miles in both directions along the coast from up here.
21:04And of course, out to sea.
21:08In 1834, this room was the pinnacle, not just of the lighthouse itself, but of lighthouse technology.
21:15It was fitted out with 30 argand lamps, oil-fuelled lamps mounted on a large rotating platform, powered mechanically by
21:26a clockwork motor.
21:28And the idea was that that mechanism would produce a light that flashed every two minutes.
21:35And it's said that the light could be seen from up to 20 nautical miles away, a lot further than
21:42Parson Derby's rudimentary beacon a century before.
21:52With its cliff-top position, uninterrupted views and powerful modern oil lamps, Bell 2 should have been the perfect lighthouse.
22:03But it had a fatal flaw.
22:06The designers had failed to take into account one thing that's quite common around here.
22:13Fog.
22:17The lighthouse could be shrouded in fog for hours, while the air out at sea was perfectly clear.
22:25One captain who ran aground on the rocks just down there is said to have exclaimed,
22:31Bless my heart! What a place to put a lighthouse! Right up there, in the clouds!
22:42The continued loss of ships to the waters around Beachy Head was proof that Bell 2 just wasn't up to
22:49the job.
22:50I mean, what's the point in a lighthouse if you can't even see it?
22:54And things would go from bad to worse for the beleaguered Bell 2.
23:09Bell 2 lighthouse sits proudly on East Sussex's iconic White Cliffs, overlooking the English Channel.
23:18But its volatile waters have brought down many unsuspecting ships, while its strong tides are steadily eating away a whole
23:29section of coastline.
23:30And it's estimated that it's receding at around a foot to a foot and a half every year.
23:40Beachy Head's first lighthouse, Parson Derby's man-made cavern, has totally disappeared.
23:47And its successor is also battling these crumbling cliffs.
23:53When Bell 2 was built in 1829, it sat comfortably a hundred feet back from the cliff edge.
24:00When work began on Bell 2, the cliff face was somewhere around here.
24:10By the end of the 1990s, the cliff edge had moved again to round about here.
24:18And that was very bad news for Bell 2 lighthouse.
24:32Architect Dominic Cullinan's grandmother used to own the lighthouse.
24:36And he remembers very well the joys of playing here in his childhood.
24:42This is a superb picture, putting it into context with the proximity to the cliffs.
24:46I don't think we were particularly aware of the crumbling edge, but when you look at this photograph you can
24:51see that it is crumbly.
24:53There was a terrace on the seaside of the lighthouse tower.
24:57And that as children we weren't allowed to step off that terrace.
25:00I mean, on pain of our granny's wrath, but literally on pain of death, because there's no fences or anything.
25:08Dominic's grandmother was the custodian of 500 feet of disintegrating cliff.
25:14It was a job she took very seriously.
25:17As it continued to crumble, she took matters into her own hands.
25:23When we were teenagers, I think we arrived once, couldn't find my granny anywhere until we noticed a rope that
25:30went over the edge of the cliff.
25:31Right.
25:32And on the end of that rope was my granny.
25:36She was hanging off the...
25:36With a bucket of concrete, yeah, filling in the rabbit holes, because she was convinced the rabbits were responsible for
25:44the erosion.
25:44She suspected that maybe the rabbits borrowing through the chalk were not helping the erosion.
25:50No, yes, yes, yes.
25:51She's right, because you could see the rabbit holes exposed.
25:55Yeah, but she was there, what, with a trowel and a bucket of cement cementing up these rabbit holes?
25:59I think it's just a natural sense of social duty she had.
26:03Fair enough.
26:04Yeah.
26:06When Dominic's grandparents bought the lighthouse in the 1950s, it was a shell of its former self.
26:13The Second World War had left it badly damaged, but not at the hands of the Germans.
26:20In the run-up to the D-Day invasion, Belle II became target practice for the Royal Canadian Artillery.
26:30Who was it then responsible for renovating it from this?
26:34My grandpa and granny bought it, having in mind that their son, Ted, was a newly qualified architect, doing most
26:43of the building work himself.
26:44So they reconstructed the damaged parts of the tower. You can see there are chunks of tower missing.
26:49Yeah.
26:50He rebuilt the first floor as a homage to a building called Ronchamps, which is a chapel in eastern France.
26:59So it felt very much like being in that modernist masterpiece.
27:05Dominic's uncle Ted brought Belle II back to its former glory.
27:10But it wouldn't be too long before bad luck would come knocking on its door again.
27:18In 1998, a huge 30 feet slab of land broke off the cliff.
27:27The dramatic rockfall meant that Belle II was now only 16 feet away from the cliff edge.
27:38Time was running out for the lighthouse.
27:40Something drastic had to be done before the 850-tonne structure would come crashing down into the sea.
27:52The solution was a monumental piece of precision engineering.
27:58A plan was hatched to move the entire lighthouse 55 feet inland and daringly in just one piece.
28:07We decided that sliding the building was the most cost-effective way of doing it.
28:12It would be more expensive to cut it in sections and then lift it by crane.
28:17The first challenge for Paul and his team was to work out a plan of how to move the monolith
28:24-like structure.
28:26The design involves slide rails which go underneath the whole thing
28:30and then extending back out to where the lighthouse is going to eventually sit.
28:36They had to place 22 hydraulic jacks under the lighthouse to lift it onto these four slide rails
28:43and then pump grease onto them so the lighthouse would glide easily into its new position.
28:50This intricate planning was crucial for the actual move to succeed.
28:57It's quite a painstaking process.
28:59The design itself has taken several months.
29:02The job itself took five months to get to the point of the move, but the move only took two
29:10days.
29:11And the architect behind this design was none other than Dominic, following in his Uncle Ted's footsteps.
29:21And even though she no longer lived there, Dominic's grandmother had a very important role to play on the day
29:27of Belle II's big move.
29:30She had been given the honour of pulling the lever, which would start the process of the move.
29:39There's a moment here of deep fear. Everybody's a little bit worried that they're going to, instead of pushing the
29:44lighthouse,
29:44they're going to push the rest of the cliff back over into the sea.
29:51In terms of the move itself, it was almost like watching a sort of a, you know, the big hand
29:55of the big clock moving, but very slowly.
29:58So overall, it moved 17 metres in eight hours.
30:02It was definitely the right thing to do to move that lighthouse.
30:05Had we not moved it, it would have been in the sea quite a long time ago.
30:11The move was a success, but Belle II's misfortunes don't end there.
30:19In August 2021, several more tonnes of chalk came crashing down onto the beach,
30:26once again bringing the lighthouse closer to the cliff edge.
30:31Apparently the current owners count the number of bricks left in the old foundations around me here
30:38to gauge just how quickly that erosion is taking place.
30:42But with a bit of luck, it will be a good few years before Belle II is on the move
30:47again.
30:47And when, not if, when that day comes, she'll be heading in the right direction.
30:54That way.
30:55All thanks to some truly remarkable engineering.
31:01As an operational lighthouse, Belle II was a failure.
31:07Realising this at the end of the 19th century,
31:10Trinity House decided a new lighthouse was needed to take its place.
31:17The Victorian engineers who designed Beachy Head Lighthouse
31:21knew that the only way to avoid the mist and the fog that had plagued its cliff-top predecessor
31:27was to build it at the base of the rock face.
31:31But building a lighthouse that's inaccessible by boat and at the bottom of a cliff 500 feet tall
31:39wouldn't be an easy task.
31:42Low tide here leaves me with this jagged, sharp boulder field to navigate across.
31:49It's not easy going, and that's empty-handed.
31:55There's absolutely no way that the construction workers with the men and the materials needed
32:02to build Beachy Head Lighthouse could have made it along here.
32:07There's no way.
32:11I'm puzzled by how they could have done it.
32:13So I'm hoping the answer lies in a rare collection of historical snapshots.
32:19Anna, I believe you have something here that might help me understand
32:23how Beachy Head Lighthouse was constructed.
32:25Absolutely. We've got a wonderful selection of glass lantern slides
32:29which show the building being constructed from the time they were digging the foundations
32:35until the time the lamp was lit.
32:37They date from between 1900 and 1902.
32:42Can I have a little...? Yes, certainly.
32:44I've got that. Yeah, thank you.
32:45It's quite fun seeing images in this way, isn't it?
32:51These precious time capsules reveal how men risked life and limb
32:56to build what would become England's last rock lighthouse.
33:01We've got workmen.
33:02They're about to ascend the steps that were constructed in the cliff face.
33:06I mean, look how steep they are.
33:08Oh, my word.
33:10And given that the cliffs are so high and so unstable,
33:14just that in itself was quite a major feat.
33:17Mm.
33:18Do we know who these construction workers were?
33:21They were mainly Cornish men,
33:23but there were also some Irish and Welsh workers and local men.
33:26In the 1901 census, it shows about 21 people sleeping on site,
33:32but that number varied, and later on, I gather about 53 people were employed in total.
33:39I believe we've actually got printouts of the workmen in action.
33:43That's foundations, is it?
33:45That's the foundations, yes.
33:46They had to build a cofferdam.
33:48That meant that they could work in there when the tide was coming in.
33:52They were often working in really cold, wet conditions.
33:56To build the lighthouse, over 3,500 tonnes of granite rock was mined at the Delanc Quarry in Cornwall,
34:03and then transported to Beachy Head.
34:05But the biggest challenge came at the very end of this journey,
34:10getting these huge slabs down to the bottom of the 500-foot cliff.
34:17Being out on the shore, it was too shallow to reach by a boat,
34:21and so they just decided they'd have to have access from the top of the cliff
34:25and build a cableway to take all the materials down.
34:27So this cableway is absolutely crucial to the construction of the Beachy Head Lighthouse.
34:32Yes, and you're talking enormous granite blocks and machinery,
34:36but they managed it.
34:38God, the logistics involved with this, they're tough, aren't they?
34:41They were, yes.
34:42The lighthouse is going up, and in under two years, the lighthouse was ready.
34:48The 141 feet high rock tower was completed six weeks ahead of schedule,
34:54and at super speed compared to other similar lighthouses,
34:58such as Wolfrock, which took eight years to build,
35:02and Ireland's Fastnet at five years.
35:06And on top of that, it came in £4,000 under budget.
35:13It was a triumph.
35:16But the greatest threat to this Beachy Head Lighthouse
35:19wouldn't come from Mother Nature, but from man himself.
35:36Beachy Head Lighthouse has been guiding vessels and saving lives on East Sussex's coast since 1902.
35:45It's a marvel of engineering, and a testament to the skill and determination of its construction workers.
35:53Often working in cold and wet conditions, they also needed a good head for heights.
36:01Travelling up and down these steep cliffs on a bit of rope must have been a hair-raising experience.
36:09Invented in 1834 by mining engineers, the aerial ropeway was crucial in carrying goods during the Industrial Revolution.
36:19It's now a contraption of a bygone era.
36:24But there's one still in use today.
36:27So I've come to the Fortierre Brickworks in Lancashire to see exactly how it works.
36:34Hi, Michael.
36:35Nice to meet you, Rob. How are you today?
36:37Great, thank you.
36:38We've got a bucket just come past us there that's full up.
36:41What is in there? What's being quarried up the top of it?
36:43It's basically a shale, a clay shale, effectively.
36:45We grind it into a dust at our factory, and that's our base product of our brick.
36:50How old is this ropeway mechanism that you've got here, Michael?
36:54This current ropeway is over 100 years old.
36:56It's an old bit of kit, but it does its job very, very well still.
37:01Can we go and see a bit closer up what happens at the top end here?
37:04Of course you can go.
37:05Brilliant.
37:10I love the simplicity of how this functions.
37:14It needs no fuel or electricity.
37:16It relies solely on gravity.
37:20When a full bucket of shale travels down the rope, the weight of its load pulls an empty one back
37:26up, ready to be refilled.
37:30So we're up here at the top of the hill where the quarry is.
37:33This is where they load the shale into the buckets.
37:37Do you reckon I can have a go with some of the materials to take down?
37:40Yeah, sure, come on, have a go.
37:42So once I get this on, how long is this going to take to get down to the bottom?
37:45It takes around about 20 minutes to get down to the bottom end, to our factory.
37:49There we go, that wants to go.
37:51Just let it go.
37:52Ah, that's brilliant.
37:55In my mind, I'm trying to think through the differences and the similarities between the system we've got here and
38:00the one at Beachy Head.
38:02They work in exactly the same way, that principle of gravity.
38:04The principle is exactly the same, yeah.
38:05Their weight of the load is pulling the empty buckets back up.
38:09This ropeway moves around 300 tonnes of shale a day.
38:14The one at Beachy Head not only carried materials, but had another unconventional use by today's standards.
38:23At Beachy Head, at the end of the day, the men used to use it to go back up to
38:28the top of the cliffs, using a steam engine at the top.
38:31Our buckets come back empty, nothing comes up and we don't ride them, unfortunately.
38:35Elfin Safety would have our guts for gravity.
38:37I'm sure they would.
38:42Incredibly, no one died during the construction of Beachy Head Lighthouse.
38:47It really was a clever piece of kit.
38:52What I find so satisfying about this system is its simplicity and its efficiency.
39:00The fact that this is still running today is a testament to those Victorian engineers
39:04who designed and developed this technology.
39:08No one's really come up with a better solution for this specific application.
39:13The aerial ropeway really was a stroke of genius.
39:18And without it, Beachy Head couldn't have been built.
39:26Throughout its 120 years standing guard over these waters, Beachy Head Lighthouse has withstood everything Mother Nature can throw at
39:36it.
39:37And yet, it remains resolute.
39:40But on one occasion, it came perilously close to destruction.
39:49During the Second World War, thousands of huge anti-ship mines were dropped in the English Channel by the Royal
39:57Navy to deter German ships.
40:02On one particular day, a duty lighthouse keeper spotted a mine heading his way.
40:09The current was pushing it directly towards the lighthouse.
40:15When the keeper contacted the Navy for advice, he was simply told to shoot it.
40:23Unfortunately for the keeper, he didn't have a gun.
40:27So all he could do was watch and wait.
40:31But with every new wave, this huge floating bomb got ever closer.
40:42Eventually, the mine passed within just a few feet of the base of the lighthouse.
40:49And the relieved keeper watched as it passed by and slowly fell up onto the shore.
40:57Where it exploded.
41:02Beachy Head Lighthouse had been saved.
41:04But only just.
41:09Keepers watched over these shores for more than 80 years.
41:14One of the last to call it home is Ian Cairns, who arrived here in 1982.
41:22I loved the job. It was just nice.
41:25When you're out there, you get all that little peace and quiet.
41:30Beachy Head held one perk many other rock lighthouses didn't.
41:35Beachy Head, for a start, didn't have water surrounding it every day.
41:38And you could get off and have a meander through the rocks, picking up.
41:43It's a crab or cockles or mussels, et cetera, et cetera.
41:48A bit of fishing.
41:50When they were on duty, the keepers ran a tight ship.
41:54On the average ship, you either done an eight-hour morning watch, or an afternoon watch, or you did a
42:01lunchtime watch.
42:03It's not a one-man job. It's not a one-man job.
42:06The three of you each do different things on different days.
42:12Once you get into the routine, you just accept how it all works. Nice.
42:19But all good things come to an end.
42:21The lighthouse became fully automated in 1983.
42:26An end of an era for its keepers.
42:29I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Trinity House.
42:31I met some lovely people.
42:33You know, still got fond memories.
42:36Plus the fact you mention it in the streets.
42:38Oh, you used to be a lighthouse keeper.
42:40I'm quite impressed by the fact that I was a lighthouse keeper.
42:44Never made one before, you know.
42:50With the development of technology and modern shipping,
42:54the lighthouse was scheduled to be decommissioned in 2010.
42:58But for a stretch of coastline that's still fraught with dangers,
43:03local sailors successfully campaigned to keep the light on.
43:09And so Beachy Head remains a vital navigation tool and is still saving lives today.
43:17For 300 years, there have been beacons warning sailors and smugglers alike
43:24of the perils posed by these waters.
43:27But this lighthouse, built by the Victorians
43:30in one of the most challenging locations imaginable,
43:34is the one that stood the test of time.
43:37Now, the chalky cliffs may crumble around it,
43:41but Beachy Head Lighthouse continues to defy the sea.
43:47And stand guard over this,
43:50one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the British Isles.
44:01Next time, on a jagged, storm-blasted precipice...
44:06I turned round to see the wave.
44:07I thought we were done for.
44:09...outrageous wartime demands...
44:11The Navy wants the light in the right place.
44:14That's Michael Flucker.
44:15...leads to incredible engineering solutions.
44:19They got him to work through an upturned bicycle handle.
44:22And an extraordinary lighthouse.
44:29Rob, building the impossible again, new next Friday at 8.
44:33The truth is out there as David Duchovny and Cillian Anderson
44:38dive into the best cases from The X-Files.
44:41Stream now on 5.
44:42Next tonight, the truth about the tremendous power of Italy's volcanoes.
44:46And they've got a fair few.
44:48Dara O'Brien starts his journey at the mighty Mount Etna in just a moment.
44:53...
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