The National Trust already owns about four miles of the chalk cliffs.

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The park stretches from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex, and includes woodland, heathland, downlands and the white chalk cliffs at Beachy Head.

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Somebody must have been sitting here that afternoon, using a piece of chalk from the cliffs to draw those figures onto the flints.

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The trust manages the cliffs as chalk grassland, parts of which are grazed by Exmoor ponies to preserve the natural flora and support wildlife.

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The tide was high, and for a hundred feet away from the shore, the water appeared to be the colour of green milk, the waves having sluiced chalk from the foreshore and cliffs, which stained the sea white.

BBC: England��s ghostly South Downs Way

Further east more dramatic cliffs beckon: the day walk (12km) from Alfriston to Eastbourne rollercoasters over the Seven Sisters, a series of chalk-white, up-down cliffs that would make Dame Vera Lynn burst into song.

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