Bang goes 380,000 tons of chalk, washed away by the tide

The Royal Sappers and Miners had placed five sets of explosive powder into Seaford Head cliff with a view to creating a breakwater to disrupt the tidal flow of shingle within Seaford Bay.

The morning of the Great Explosion was sunny and clear and the town was soon packed with visitors; by 10 o' clock the roads from the station were 'lined with an immense concourse of persons' hundreds of which had arrived by train from London. The London Brighton and South Coast Railway ran trains every half an hour and a 'monster train' from London was handsomely decorated with flags and flowers.

People travelled from all the nearby villages and towns and roads were blocked with 'numerous carriages, gigs, flys and carts'. The pubs and restaurants of Seaford must have had a very profitable day although by 2pm most people were vying for position along the beach. More than 10,000 people packed the shoreline around Seaford Bay with thousands more on Seaford Head cliffs and even some in the water. Thousands also climbed the cliffs at Newhaven three miles away, but the richest visitors hired boats to view the event from the sea. Among these vessels was HMS Widgeon which was commanded by Captain Bullock and it is also rumoured that Charles Dickens managed to find a boat in which to view the spectacular event.

At three, the time that the explosion was due, all eyes turned to the Martello Tower where a flag was hoisted by Sir James Burgoyne, the military commander of the operation. A bugle sounded and this was answered by a bugle call by Sergeant Wright who was on duty at the Battery Shed which was on top of the cliffs and from where the detonations would be set. A few short moments of anticipation and silence was broken by the rumble and explosion of the lower two chambers and a massive wall of chalk bulged out at the base of the cliffs causing the cliffs above to fall. This probably cut the wires which connected the three smaller chambers of explosives which did not detonate. Seaford Head trembled, causing spectators to momentarily stagger and some spectators near the base of the cliff felt the force of the blast as similar to a mild electric shock. In Seaford, glasses on the tables of the inns and houses rattled and there was some slight structural damage when a chimney dislodged some bricks. The explosion was even felt as far away as Newhaven.

The Sappers in the Battery Hut had a lucky escape when the cliff fell away within a few feet of the building, should the three other explosive chambers have detonated, they would have certainly have been killed. The explosion was followed by a huge cheer from the crowds who immediately began to swarm over the 50ft mound of chalk, the fact that there were three buried unexploded caches of explosive and the very real danger of further rock falls did not deter them - no 'health and safety' concerns in those days. Indeed, there were several minor chalk slips and several people were coated in a fine chalk dust giving them the appearance of flour millers.

The majority of people headed back to Seaford where the day had been declared a holiday. General Sir James Burgoyne had arranged for marquees to be erected at the town battery and here he entertained his men (officers and lower ranks) with a dinner.

For days afterwards crowds climbed over the chalk rubble, collecting fossils and even sections of the detonator wires. HMS Widgeon went directly from Seaford to Dover where Captain Bullock supervised the laying of the undersea telegraph to France.

The great Seaford Explosion was covered by the Illustrated London News which contained a detailed account and three engravings. (One produced here) However, even this article, published just a week later, reported that much of the 380,000 tons of chalk which had been displaced was already beginning to get washed away by the strong tides.

The man-made breakwater caused by the explosion did not last the winter and 25 years later the great storm of 1875 prompted the Seaford Bay Company to invest in a sturdy sea wall to protect the town. No louder bang was to be heard in Seaford Bay until November 1944 when an ammunition barge exploded off Newhaven.

KEVIN GORDON