This blog loves a meridianmarker, having published at least21 posts on the subject. Here's one I last walked past in 2011 and revisited at the weekend, discovering a fresh meridian innovation barely one week old.
The Greenwich Meridian crosses the English coast in the frontier town of Peacehaven, East Sussex. It's one of several sea-hugging settlements east of Brighton, in this case a speculative venture by a property developer called Charles Neville who started buying up farmland in 1915. He ran a nationwide competition to name his 'Garden City by the Sea', was taken to court for mis-selling and amid all the hoo-ha managed to sell off hundreds of plots. The town grew as a dense grid of self-builds and interminable bungalows, and stretches back over a mile into the South Downs from a 40m-high flank of chalk cliffs. Most of its original homes have thankfully been replaced, but Peacehaven is still popular for those who prioritise value over aesthetics.
When a resident called Commander Davenport noticed that the town lay on the Greenwich Meridian, Charles Neville sensed the possibility of more publicity and proposed that it be marked with a monument. A temporary wooden fingerpost appeared on the clifftop while £300 was duly raised, the majority by public subscription, enabling the construction of a proper obelisk with inbuilt drinking fountain. The original intention was that it'd double up as a memorial to King George V's Silver Jubilee but he died a few months before it was unveiled on 10th August 1936. The Astronomer Royal was amongst those who turned up for the ceremony.
There are four plaques, the largest commemorating a "beloved sovereign", another laid by C.W. Neville Esq. Another gives the distance in Statute Miles to eight Empire cities, the furthest being Wellington and the closest London (Greenwich), which is 48 miles distant on a bearing of 0° 00'. The only faded plaque is the most recent, added by the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex on Meridian Day 2014, a tenuous 130th anniversary tribute. The globe on top is alas a replacement, the original having been whipped off in the great storm of 1987. And most tellingly the memorial's had to be moved back from the cliff edge twice, admittedly due to coastal defences than coastal erosion, but if it ever needs to shift another 30 feet it'd end up in number 96's front garden.
The latest innovation is a circular walk called the Meridian Meander. It's so new that it was only launched last Monday when representatives of the town council joined local residents for a circumnavigation ending with light refreshments at the Welcome Café in Community House. I had wondered why the information board looked so fresh and ungraffitied. The 3 mile loop takes in the Golden Lamppost on Greenwich Way beside Meridian Park, which ticks all the zero boxes, also the Gracie Fields Orphanage and The Oval viewpoint. But the trail also highlights Big Mouths Burgers and Wimpy Park so I didn't feel the need to have a go, plus I was in the middle of a 14 milecoastwalk so didn't have the time. Should you be more amenable there's a leaflet you can download and a certificate you can print out at the end.
My Peacehaven experience was mostly along the Undercliff, the lengthy promenade that follows the foot of the artificially-trimmed chalk cliffline. I assume there's normally a pebbly beach but it was high tide so all I saw was water, and it was raging churning water because the wind was gusting strongly from the west. Waves smashed repeatedly against the seawall, splashing up like a geyser at seemingly random points along a good mile of coast. 'Steps may be slippery' indeed. On a summer's day I might have wondered why there were no beach huts down here but in late November it was clear they'd never survive the beating. Ditto I could see why the memorial was up on the clifftop rather than down by the shore where the Greenwich Meridian really leaves England's shores, next stop Villers-sur-Mer.
