Badgers Watch, South Coast Road, Telscombe Cliffs

Image: © Simon Carey Taken: 15 Mar 2009

The pub which is little more than a decade old has a long history having been built around 1811 as the Portobello Coastguard Station on the site of a former 18th century farmhouse that became the Lifeboat Inn so named because a small three person vessel would be lowered down the nearby cliff when a ship was in distress. Early on it seemed to revert to being a pub as it was known as the Brewers Arms during the 1830s and was heavily linked with the local smuggling trade, many tunnels and passages were discovered beneath when it was renovated in the 1990s. In 1841 11 cottages on the left were built as coastguard living quarters and the old building seems to have reverted again as a coastguard station which it remained until the Second World War. It remained unused and derelict until the 1990s conversion back into a pub named in a public competition, very apt for Peacehaven, after a sett was discovered in its garden. The road is the A259 South Coast Road which prior to the building of Peacehaven and Telscombe Cliffs was known as the Dover Road. Beyond is Telscombe Tye, a common piece of land separating the 20th century developments of Saltdean and Peacehaven.

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