Pett is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the Rother district of

East Sussex East Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Kent to the north-east, West Sussex to the west, Surrey to the north-west, and the English Channel to the south. The largest settlement ...

, England. The village is located north-east of

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

on the edge of Pett Level, the one-time marshes stretching along the coast of Rye Bay. The road through the village leads down to the second village in the parish: Pett Level, the coastal part of which is known as ''Cliff End''. Here there is a beach and, as the name suggests, the

Weald The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, and Kent. It has three parts, the sandstone "High W ...

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

cliffs reach their easternmost point. Pett Level marks the end of both the

Royal Military Canal The Royal Military Canal is a canal running for between Seabrook near Folkestone and Cliff End near Hastings, following the old cliff line bordering Romney Marsh, which was constructed as part of British anti-invasion preparations of 1803–0 ...

and the western end of the 1940s sea defence wall. The

Saxon Shore Way The Saxon Shore Way is a long-distance footpath in England. It starts at Gravesend, Kent, Gravesend, Kent, and traces the coast of South-East England as it was in Roman Empire, Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, in total. This mean ...

passes through Pett Level. Pett parish church is dedicated to St Mary and St Peter. Pett also has a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

chapel, and a small

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

church at Cliff End.

History

The manor of Pett belonged to a succession of families, including the Halle family, the

Levett Levett is a surname of Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman origin, deriving from eLivet, which is held particularly by families and individuals resident in England and British Commonwealth territories. Origins This surname comes from the village of ...

family, the Fletchers and the Medleys, before eventually passing to the Earls of Liverpool. Between early 1913 until 1916, a secluded bungalow in Pett Level was the home of sculptor

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American and British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1910. Early in his ...

and his wife Peggy Using the garden shed there as a studio, during these three years Epstein produced a number of notable works.

Landmarks

There is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

partly within the parish.

Hastings Cliffs to Pett Beach Hastings Country Park was formed in 1974 and covers east of Hastings in England. Sandstone cliffs, glens covered with gorse and trees, footpaths, nature trails, picnic areas and ample car parking are some of the features at the country park. Se ...

runs along the coast and is of both biological and geological interest. The cliffs hold many fossils and have many habitats, including ancient woodland and shingle beaches. These include a sunken forest, a warship which is thought to have sunk in 1690, a lost series of

Martello tower Martello towers are small defensive forts that were built across the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards. Most were coastal forts. They stand up to high (with two floors) and typica ...

s. At Cliff End the beach has some fossils and some dinosaur footprints made by iguanodons and

ankylosaurus ''Ankylosaurus'' is a genus of Thyreophora, armored dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in geological formations dating to the very end of the Cretaceous Period (geology), Period, about 68–66 million years ago, in western North America, m ...

up to 100m years ago in the

Lower Cretaceous Lower may refer to: * ''Lower'' (album), 2025 album by Benjamin Booker * Lower (surname) * Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) * Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also * Nizhny {{Disambiguation ...

Sunken forest

A sunken forest can be seen in the sand at low tide in the shore opposite the levels. The forest stood around 6500 years ago, before the melting of the glaciers after the last ice age raised sea levels. The forest can be seen as spongy wooden roots, fallen trunks and tree stumps across large areas in the sand. Sea conditions may bury the remains in sand from time to time until uncovered again by storms. The trees have been identified as oak, birch and hazel.

Wreck of HMS Anne

HMS ''Anne'' was a 70-gun

third rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Rating When the rating system was f ...

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...

of the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

, launched in 1678. She was badly damaged at the Battle of Beachy Head on 30 June 1690. Her captain beached her here and she was set on fire to prevent capture by the French. Her remains were discovered when the vessel was partly dug up by a mechanical excavator in 1974. The wreck is usually exposed by low tides which are below 0.6m above the

chart datum A chart datum is the water surface serving as origin (or coordinate surface) of depths displayed on a nautical chart and for reporting and predicting tide heights. A chart datum is generally derived from some tidal phase, in which case it is ...

(Dover). She lies in sand on a firm clay substrate on top of the prehistoric submerged forest. An explanatory panel is placed opposite her location on the sea wall.

In popular culture

Pett Level beach was the filming location for parts of the video of

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

's 1980 number one hit single " Ashes to Ashes."

Jonathan Miller Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, comedian and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 19 ...

filmed the beach scenes for his 1966 TV film of ''Alice in Wonderland'' at Pett Level. Sir

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( ; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Britis ...

played the Mock Turtle and

Malcolm Muggeridge Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was a conservative British journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, i ...

was the Gryphon.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in East Sussex Civil parishes in East Sussex Beaches of East Sussex Rother District