Eastbourne DCNN 5471 – Now you see it, now you don’t….or is it gone forever?

50.79522 0.28299 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1896 but who knows where?

This is probably the most confusing station review of all I have made so far. Tim Channon reviewed this site in 2012 as an object lesson in where to “hide” rather than locate a Stevenson screen.

Tim’s original report is essential reading in setting the scene for modern updating. The depth of detail Tim went to including original 19th century siting, data on the adjacent transformers and all the other various compromising factors was very impessrive indeed

Eastbourne, East Sussex

As Tim identified, the screen then marginally relocated within its immediate locality was one of the worst sites possible being technically below ground level. Below is the best 2009 image I could manage looking down onto the screen roof in photo centre behind the (then) public toilets.

However, the area does not look like this now and there are no notes in the archives indicating the relocation or when it was. Here is the latest image of the 2012 known site now – no screen anymore!

The Met Office does not rename nor renumber sites on relocation if the distance moved is small or the local climatology does not significantly change. The screen was moved to my headline image site at some subsequent data to a site that was thus, presumably, judged to be equally bad. Again it is only just possible to make out the new site in Streetview as it is almost entirely obscured by tall hedging – so much so it might as well be below ground level.

The new screen is also still a manually reporting one as presumably the site was not considered worth the expense of automating. However, whether or not the site is even still operational at all is debateable. CEDA archives indicate readings stopped 2/10/2023 even though the site is still listed as active here.

I contacted the Met Office over two weeks ago to clarify (Case number CS0090364) however, answering simple yes/no questions seems remarkably slow from them at the moment.

In summary Eastbourne was a very poor quality manual site of several different locations over time that was also relocated at some recent, but unspecified date, to an equally bad one – it may or may not still be operational. Confused? I am.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/03/05/eastbourne-dcnn-5471-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont-or-is-it-gone-forever/