An inspiring, new immersive walking experience that encourages visitors to discover new stories and reflections on Sussex’s iconic Heritage Coast has now officially launched. This summer, people walking along the beautiful chalk coastline from Seaford to Eastbourne will be able to tune in to 13 unique audio stories, each attached to a ‘listening point’ in the landscape, such as a bench, gate post or signpost.

We Hear You Now: the audio content includes stirring, emotive and sometimes surprising stories covering fiction, poetry and even new mythologies for this world-famous coastline. The talented wordsmiths have worked in collaboration with Alinah Azadeh, project lead and the first-ever Writer-in-Residence for Seven Sisters Country Park and Sussex Heritage Coast.
Alinah explained: “My intention is that our stories and poems act as a welcome, a creative spark – and a marker of radical hope in these precarious times.
“I wanted to make space both for my own work as resident writer and to amplify other creative voices missing from this pastoral coastal landscape; older women’s voices, Black voices, voices of colour, migrant voices, queer and non-binary voices, working class voices, disabled voices.
“Many of us have centred the most crucial voice of all; the voice of the land, and its challenge to us to reciprocate the care, protection, spaces for rest and joy it has always given us.
“Thank you to the close partnership and unswerving support of the South Downs National Park, and all the writers and spectrum of partners in making this new immersive walking experience possible.” The experience begins at the Seven Sisters Country Park Visitor Centre, near Seaford, and leads the visitor around the meanders and river of Cuckmere Valley. Then you are taken along the breathtaking chalk coast via Belle Tout Lighthouse and Beachy Head. Visitors can sit and hear the stories, or walk with them. The audio stories are accessed via any smartphone by simply scanning a QR code or tapping for an NFC code.
The writers are Alinah Azadeh, Georgina Aboud, Jenny Arach, Razia Aziz, Joyoti Grech Cato, Oluwafemi Hughes, Dulani Kulasinghe, Georgina Parke and Akila Richards. Access the video here:
Anooshka Rawden, Cultural Heritage Lead for the South Downs National Park, said: “Exploring the landscape with ecologists, archaeologists and environmental campaigners, British-Iranian writer and artist Alinah Azadeh, has used her passion for the South Downs to provide a nurturing hand to fellow creatives who have been invited to voice their relationship with the Seven Sisters and the Sussex Coast.
“In We Hear You Now, writers of global heritage bring stories of survival, recovery and reverence for land as a living, breathing entity to create new mythologies for this iconic landscape. I hope anyone who listens to this new immersive walking experience feels closer to the land under their feet, and to the people and cultures who have been part, and continue to be part of its future.”
The trail launches to the public on 24 June 2023. Print guides with a map and information can be collected from Seven Sisters Country Park Visitor Centre, Exceat, near Seaford, East Sussex, BN25 4AD and across partner sites, or downloaded online from 24 June 2023. All content is freely available.