Cuckmere Haven defences to be lost under water
Posted: 10 December 2008 22:50
The Environment Agency has today announced plans to end maintenance of flood defences at Cuckmere Haven, consigning the surviving WW2 defences to a watery grave.
Yet another failure to preserve anti-invasion defences by a Government agency; the EA states that preservation of archaeology (listed or not) is not within its remit.
However, there have been calls for a public enquiry - see the BBC website.
There seems to be absolutely no documentation online that outlines how the area would be affected; the EA website just has this page.
There are more serious issues than the WW2 defences though; residents in the clifftop cottages have expressed concerns that the EA's abandonment of flood defence here will lead to the concrete sea wall being undermined.
Ironically, Cuckmere Haven was listed in the Defence Areas Project as a place where a significant amount of defences still survive, so the importance of the area is recognised.
An additional point is that we know from German documents that had Sealion gone ahead, then part of the invasion force would have attempted to land here at Cuckmere Haven - I feel this adds greatly to the historic value of the area.
Then you also have the graffiti on the line of dragon's teeth that tells us that 133 Coy AMPC built some of the defences here, not to mention the other graffiti and objects I found here.
Let us not lose an important part of our history.
- Pete
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Cubes
Anti-tanks blocks, popularly known as dragon's teeth. Not to be confused with smaller blocks known as pimples, cubes can be upwards of 1m square. Many examples in Sussex have apexes or chamfered edges, leading to them being incorrectly recorded as coffins.
Defence Areas Project
A study based on 67 areas identified from the Defence of Britain Project database as good examples of areas where significant portions the defences still survived, the study of which resulted in William Foot's Beaches, fields, streets and hills.
Sealion
(German Seelöwe) - Operation Sealion was the code name for the German plan for the invasion of Britain.
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Hibbs, Peter Cuckmere Haven defences to be lost under water (2024) Available at: http://www.pillbox.org.uk/blog/216590/ Accessed: 19 April 2024
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