Ancient Monuments & Historical Sites
 

Seaford Head was once the site of a Bronze Age bowl barrow and an Iron Age hill fort, the remains . of which can still be

seen as a raised bank. A bowl barrow is a funerary monument usually dating from between 2400 and 1500 BC.  There are many other historical and archaeological sites scattered across the Reserve, including a Romano-British burial ground and World War II entrenchments.

Geology

Where the South Downs meet the sea you can now see the magnificent result of many years of geological processes. Around 130 million years ago, part of the earth's crust began to sink causing the sea to invade vast areas. During this time, microscopic calcareous (chalky) bodies called Coccoliths, were produced by planktonic algae and fell to the sea floor. These were compacted by the weight of the sea into chalk. Over time this chalk was raised up forming the cliffs we now see. The cliffs are mainly shaped by the sea which erodes them on average by half a metre per year. Such erosion often occurs as large falls.

The Cuckmere River is around two million years old and has been carving out the valley ever since. In 1846 the river meanders were cut off and the main river channel straightened in order to allow access by barges upstream and to alleviate flooding and avoid silt deposition.The original meanders are now a sluice fed lake. The Voluntary Marine Conservation Area is the most extensive and least disturbed stretch of chalk shore anywhere in the country