I have to get my abacus out when I think about Lewes in the mid-nineteenth century. I am fixated on how many pubs I could have hit on a pub crawl in those grand Victorian days when the town had 63 pubs and 17 breweries.
Relating history through hand me down tales is part of the rich tapestry which makes up our vision of the past. So, when someone at the bar argues that there were in fact 18 breweries and 71 pubs, I am very happy to go along with their understanding of the past.
My version was passed onto me by someone who claims his great grandfather always had a merry old time in those 63 pubs, but they weren’t merry old times for everyone at that time.
‘I’m just popping out to the pub for a quick one’ was not heard in many families in 1864. You were more likely to hear, ‘Get your shawl on mother, find the kids , we’re off to the pub.’
Sounds heavenly, doesn’t it?
63 Lewes pubs for a population of only 9000. Wives who, surprisingly in that rather strict Victorian era, willingly joined the family for a noggin or two is surely an admirable situation.
So, I would have been in my element in this all this haste to get to the boozer.
Now I freely admit to having an aversion to water. First, the natural stuff tastes bloody awful and secondly it dilutes the alcohol in your drink.
The water in Lewes was at that time unfit to drink. So, the whole family trotted off to the pub to literally quench their thirst. The beer wasn’t as potent as it is today. Brewers and inn keepers alike were responsible tradesmen and had no desire to hook youngsters into a drinking habit. The breweries produced an ale low enough in alcohol for kids to drink and not fall over.
A night in, was no fun. I once discovered while plugging a gap in the roof, a TV Times dated September 12th, 1847. The programmes on telly then were as rubbish as they are today, so the urge to visit friends at a local hostelry was much preferred by all.
Anyone who has bought a cottage in Lewes that is more than 200 years old will know that major repairs had to be undertaken at some time in its life to make it habitable by today’s
living standards.
Nineteenth century houses were not very cheery places and the meagre fireplace didn’t do much to heat a draughty dwelling, where the wind whistled indoors as much as out.
The Roman invention in 400 AD of hot water central heating was lost during the medieval age of big castles and lowly hovels.
So, families had many good reasons to go to the pub. Bad water, good company and a warm roaring fire…
Popping out to the pub back then wasn’t easy if there wasn’t one just down the street. Going from Southover to Cliffe wasn’t impossible, but it took a damn sight longer to do then, than it would today.
This meant that market forces dictated that pubs had to be located close to their clientele. As a result of this fact, wherever you were in Lewes, you could always find a neighbourhood boozer literally just around any corner, and sometimes you would even find two.
Many of these pubs were just a cottage with a licence to sell alcohol. Others which have stood the test of time are among the remaining sixteen taverns plying their trade in Lewes.
Harvey’s Brewery, which dates back to 1790, is the sole surviving brewery. It had two big advantages: its situation on the river Ouse, and its onsite deep well producing pure spring water, a rarity in 19th century Lewes.
The only other major brewery in Lewes was Beard’s Star. It closed its doors in the mid 20th Century and its site is now a complex of small businesses and craft shops in Castle Ditch Lane.
Most of the pubs have gone, demolished or converted. Those where a dedicated drinker can still raise a tankard at an ancient bar include: The Black Horse, Lewes Arms and The Brewers – although the original building there has been replaced – The Swan, The Royal Oak and The Lansdown.
But the granddaddies of them all have to be The Pelham Arms, which dates from 1640 and The Dorset Arms, built in 1670. There may be others, but in this modern age where for many a burger is more important than a decent pint, the geniuses who produce websites seem keener on letting customers know how many toilet rolls are in the loo than giving a proper history of the pub.
Of the lost pubs, several remain, but are disguised by a different frontage.
The most interesting are the King and Queen and Cliffe Tavern, both now absorbed within Bill’s Restaurant on Cliffe High Street. On the same road was The Beehive, now a posh little shop and The Castle, now a betting shop. The Fruiterers on Sun Street is now a private dwelling, as is the Morning Star, a rather elegant house near the Old Grammar School. Another. The Spread Eagle, is an Osteopaths. What was The Britannia, is a small house on Keere Street.
The Gardener’s Arms on Cliffe High Street, according to oral history, was originally the front room of a gardener who invited his fellow diggers in for drinks after work. It is still a busy and unique pub, while another pub, long since vanished, hosted an escaped Russian prisoner who went over the wall of the naval prison just to get a tot of rum, because he missed it so much from his homeland.
The stories are legion, but one true tale about a forgotten pub is of the Red White and Blue in Friars Walk opened in 1867, this pub has a front of remarkable green glazed tiles. The inn was converted to a house in 1960.
Recently, the owners chipped away the plaster covering the walls, revealing the old pub façade in all its glory.
Sadly, it does not yet offer a pint, but who knows, this is Lewes, and anything can happen in a town where there were 63 flourishing pubs, er, perhaps even 70. Gulp!
63 pubs and a population of only 9000
