History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network
Eastbourne Cables
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History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications |
Eastbourne Cables |
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France was the destination of the first two submarine cables ever laid, in 1850 and 1851 from Dover to Calais. The country’s close proximity to Britain no doubt influenced its choice as the destination of these first connections, but France was an important center of commerce and politics and many other cables followed. This page will eventually show the history of all the cables laid to France from the Sussex coast around Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, between 1861 and 1979. “Beachy Head” was often used to describe the English landing point of the cables, particularly in French documents, even though no cables landed at Beachy Head itself. This map shows the primary landing points: Hope Gap (Cuckmere Haven), Birling Gap, and Holywell (Eastbourne). Click on the link below for a larger map, or zoom in on each marker to see the local terrain.
CABLES
John Murrell took photographs of a cable at Cuckmere in 2010. He writes:
The exposed cable appears to have polythene insulation, which would suggest that it may be the 1945 Cuckmere-Dieppe cable. The location of the “Telephone Exchange” is shown at the red marker on the map above. Rather than being an exchange, the building was more likely a cable hut where the undersea cable was terminated and connected to the onbound land line.
CABLES CUT IN WORLD WAR II In May 1940, Operation Quixote was deployed off the coast of Norfolk to cut the six cables between the East Coast of England and the German islands of Borkum and Norderney. The ships involved were the destroyers HMS Jackal, Jaguar, and Javelin, each of which escorted two of HM Trawlers Grampian, Pelton, James Lay, Milford Queen, Milford Princess and Cape Melville in cutting the cables in three groups. A signal from the Admiralty dated 12 June 1940 ordered that four other cables which had not been cut during ‘Quixote’ should now be dealt with as they had only been cut on the beach. One of those cut on the beach was the “Holywell – Dieppe Telegraph Cable (1861/1922)”; the three others ran from Cuckmere to Le Havre and had been laid in 1900 (Western Union), 1917 and 1918. According to contemporary news accounts, the 1861 cable from Dieppe was landed at Birling Gap, Beachy Head. Research continues on the report above listing it as being cut at Holywell, several miles east of Birling Gap. It is possible that the cable landing site was moved to Holywell around 1922 because of severe cliff erosion at Birling Gap. A major cliff fall is reported to have occurred on 13 April 1914 at Went Hill, one of the “Seven Sisters,” immediately to the east of Birling Gap. Newpaper stories at the time recorded that the clifftop path, formerly thirty feet from the edge of the cliff, had completely disappeared after the fall. |
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Last revised: 14 March, 2022 |
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