This then made the cliff edge erode and collapse into the sea, destroying a well-known chalk stack called the Devil's Chimney.

[3][4] In 1929, Eastbourne Borough Council bought 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) of land surrounding Beachy Head to save it from development at a cost of about £100,000 (equivalent to £7,678,995 in 2023).

It is noted as such in the sea shanty Spanish Ladies:[6] The first land we sighted was called the Dodman, Next Rame Head off Plymouth, off Portsmouth the Wight; We sailed by Beachy, by Fairlight and Dover, And then we bore up for the South Foreland light.

The ashes of German social scientist and philosopher Friedrich Engels, one of the fathers of communism, were scattered off the cliffs at Beachy Head into the Channel, as he had requested.

[3] Human remains discovered in the 1950s were subjected to forensic reconstruction, carbon dating, and radioisotype analysis, and it was concluded that they were those of a Roman woman of Sub-Saharan African origin who grew up in the Eastbourne area in about 200–250 CE.

[7][8][9] However, in 2021, DNA testing indicated she was of "southern European lineage, most likely from Cyprus";[10] the parish later ordered the removal of a plaque erected by the BBC "to commemorate the first black Briton.

[12] During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force (RAF) established a forward relay station at Beachy Head to improve radio communications with aircraft.

The Germans had reactivated the pre-war TV transmitter and instituted a Franco-German service for military hospitals and VIPs in the Paris region.

[15] In 2010, it was the third most common suicide spot in the world, after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aokigahara Woods in Japan, according to The Wall Street Journal.

[16] The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team conducts regular day and evening patrols of the area in attempts to locate and stop potential cliff jumpers.

Workers at the pub and taxi drivers are also on the lookout for people contemplating suicide and there are signs with the telephone number of the Samaritans urging potential jumpers to call them.

[17] Eastbourne Borough Council drew media coverage in 2018 for its policy of removing shrines and crosses left at Beachy Head by families of suicide victims.