The cliffs have appeared in many films, from Quadrophenia to Harry Potter and of course Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yet for all their beauty and symbolism they are also one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world.
Photographer Brian David Stevens has been documenting the area from Beachy Head to Birling Gap for the past year, recording both the changing seasons and the small crosses that dot the cliff tops, each one a memorial to a life.
Writer Robert Macfarlane commented on Brian's pictures: "These are special images. I've never seen Beachy Head look like this. You make the billowing earth and the billowing cloud speak to one another.
"And those circling birds, aloft in the way that the suicides might long to be, reminded me of a line of Paul Claudel's that I quoted somewhere in Mountains of the Mind: 'We lack wings to fly, but will always have strength to fall.'"
But perhaps the images speak for themselves.
Alongside the Sussex Police and the coastguard the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team (BHCT) patrols the area and reaches out to those in distress.
You can see more of Brian's work on his website.
The chalk cliffs at Beachy Head sit at the eastern end of the South Downs National Park on the south coast of England and offer wonderful views across the south coast to those walking the coastal path.