Sound and Light at Dungeness

Open Country

The landscape of Dungeness, at the south-eastern tip of England, is an unusual one. In this programme, Helen Mark finds out about stories surrounding sound and light on this peninsula which juts out into the English Channel. She visits the huge concrete "sound mirrors" - built in the 1920s as an early detection system for incoming enemy planes. Their technology became obsolete as aircraft speeds increased and radar was invented. They still stand today, but are now part of a nature reserve. Helen finds out how they worked, and experiences for herself their eerie sound projection abilities. She also learns about the wildlife which now thrives around them.

A few miles further south, Helen visits the old lighthouse - one of five lighthouses which Dungeness has had in its time. The area stands on vast ever-shifting banks of shingle, which have expanded seawards over the years, leaving previous lighthouses stranded too far from the sea. The construction of a nuclear power station in the 1950s also obscured the lighthouse then in use, so it was decommissioned in 1960 and is now a tourist attraction. Helen walks up its 169 steps to the top and talks to the current owner, whose father bought it on a whim at an auction.

In this programme Helen experiences the distinctive sounds of Dungeness - from the magic of the sound mirrors and the whistle of the tourist steam train to the ever-present crunch and rattle of the shingle underfoot. In this pancake flat landscape, sound and light both seem to move in mysterious ways.

Produced by Emma Campbell