page_title: Holywell, Eastbourne
section_title: Telegraph cable
hierarchical_section_title: Holywell, Eastbourne / Telegraph cable
caption_attribution_description: Former Holywell-Dieppe Telegraph Cable Building
context_page_description: Holywell is a part of Meads, a district of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, UK. Holywell has no specific boundaries, but lies approximately between the western end of the lower promenade and the chalk pinnacle below St Bedes Preparatory School.
context_section_description: A cross-Channel telegraph cable was brought ashore at Holywell (on what is now Beach Number 1) in 1861 and terminated in a so-called "landing shed" – the latter probably located in the old Gore chalk pit.  In 1922, when the Italian Gardens were laid out, the cable was extended from the landing shed and connected to terminal equipment in a small building (still extant) at the entrance to the gardens.
  In May 1940, HMS Jaguar was involved in Operation Quixote, when the six telegraph cables between the East Coast of England and the German islands of Borkum and Nordeney were severed.  A signal from the Admiralty dated 12 June 1940 ordered that four other cables that had not been cut during Quixote should now be dealt with as they had only been cut on the beach.  One of those cut on the beach was the Holywell – Dieppe Telegraph Cable (1861–1922); the three others ran from the Cuckmere to Le Havre and had been laid in 1900 (Western Union), 1917 and 1918.
  Dangerous rusting strands of the old cable could still be seen on the beach in the early 1950s.  These have since been removed and a careful search of the terminal building in 2004 revealed no vestiges whatsoever of cable or terminal equipment.
caption: Former terminal building of the Holywell-Dieppe telegraph cable
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