It’s all too easy to forget to fully appreciate our lovely surroundings and the fascinating history that lies behind many of the places we pass on our way to work or when we stroll around the towns or villages where we live.
There are also lots of interesting places and sights on our own doorstep which we never think about except when we have visitors and plan to take them there.
This month we are homing in on Lewes itself, where our magazine is produced, and taking a glimpse at some of the streets and and lanes we walk past without giving a second thought as to how they have combined to give the town its amazing character.
The unique charm of Lewes owes a great deal to the diverse and delightful historical buildings scattered throughout the town, reflecting how the style of architecture and the materials used have changed over the centuries.
A distinctive feature of the centre of town is the network of alleyways or ‘twittens’ which run north-south on either side of the High Street and date back to Anglo-Saxon times. Some of them, such as Broomans Lane, Church Twitten, Green Lane and Paine’s Twitten, are to this day flint-wall-lined pedestrian thoroughfares, others like Watergate Lane, St Andrew’s Lane and the renamed Station Street (which was formerly known as St Mary’s Lane) are now narrow, usually one-way, roads.
The most notable of all Lewes’ old passages is Keere Street, where the challenging weekly Sunday morning run going up and down all the twittens on the south side of the High Street – the so-called Twitten Run – has taken place every week since November 2015.
The ancient street pattern also survives extensively, as do many of the medieval building plots and oak-framed houses, although some are masked with later facades. Notable 18th-century frontages include some, like Bartholomew House at the Castle Gate, clad in mathematical tiles which mimic fine brick construction.
Over the years, numerous streets of 18th and 19th-century cottages have survived cycles of ‘slum clearance’ as charming models of attractive town housing.
Among the most important historic edifices, of course, are Lewes Castle and the remains of Lewes Priory. The 16th-century timber-framed Wealden hall house is today better known as Anne of Cleves house as it formed part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII, although she never lived there. The Round House, a secluded former windmill in Pipe Passage, was famously owned by the writer Virginia Woolf.
At the highest point of the old town, the Portland stone and Coade stone facade of the Crown Court, the brick market tower and the truly spectacular Lewes War Memorial stand out in the historic centre.
At the lowest part of the town, by the river, Harvey and Son’s Brewery, also known as ‘the Cathedral of Lewes’, is an unspoilt 19th-century tower brewery, the only one of the town’s 17 to 20 original major breweries still in use. Nearby Fitzroy House is a George Gilbert Scott-designed building, constructed as a library in memory of Lewes MP and statesman Henry Fitzroy in 1862, now a private residence. The railway station is the other important monument of the industrial era.
Going further back in time, the grade II listed Tudor manor house, Southover Grange, was built in 1572 with Caen limestone taken from the ruins of Lewes Priory. The Grange gardens, open to the public in daylight hours all year round, are divided by the Winterbourne stream and feature formal bedding displays, a wildflower area, a knot garden and some notable trees, including a large magnolia, a mulberry tree believed to date from as early as the 17th century and a tulip tree planted by Queen Elizabeth II.
Pelham House, now a wedding venue, dates back to the 16th century and features architecture of all subsequent eras, framed by a beautiful and private landscaped garden facing the Downs.
The northernmost church in the old town is St John sub Castro (Latin for St John under the castle). The church’s boundaries are protected on one side by the Town Walls, although it was originally a small Saxon building. It was destroyed in the 19th century but the main door was kept and used as an east door for the large new church, built in 1839 in flint and brick. The church has a memorial to Finnish prisoners kept in the old naval prison in the 19th century in its graveyard.
The steep and cobbled Keere Street is home to many more historic buildings, including a very old timber-framed antiquarian bookshop. The Prince Regent once drove his coach down the street as a bet and a sign at the bottom of it commemorates this hair-raising escapade.
Other rarely-mentioned events that shook Lewes include the avalanche in December 1836, which was the worst ever recorded in Britain.
A large build-up of snow on the nearby cliff slipped down onto a row of cottages called Boulters Row, now part of South Street. About 15 people were buried and eight of them died either immediately or shortly afterwards. The Snowdrop pub in South Street was named in memory of this disaster. Thirty years later, in August 1864, Lewes experienced an earthquake measuring 3.1 on the Richter scale.
Walkabout
