Belle Tout Lighthouse

How do you stop an 850 ton lighthouse from toppling over the edge of crumbling cliffs and falling into the sea below? Simple: you lift it up on runners and drag it slowly back some 150ft onto safer ground - at a cost of over GBP250,000. This is exactly what happened in 1999 to Belle Tout lighthouse, situated on Beachy Head in East Sussex. Elizabeth Wright's book, the first to consider Belle Tout, takes us from 1829, when the building was designed, to its decommissioning in 1902, its renovation, a royal visit, war damage by the Canadians, use as a TV backdrop, and most dramatically the ambitious two-day move to defeat coastal erosion - by which time it was only 10ft from the edge. This valued historical building has iconic status - instantly recognisable to the thousands of walkers who pass every year on the South Downs Way - and this is its story.