Our series of guides to Britain’s most fascinating old towns heads to the county town of East Sussex, famed for its fiery celebrations, literary connections and rural charm
HISTORIC TOWNS
Reasons to visit
For a historic town so comfortably embedded amid the natural splendour of the South Downs, it is little wonder that the delights of Lewes come with such seasonal variety. During spring, head to Southover Grange, a rustic Tudor manor in the heart of the town which has a modest yet well maintained public garden filled with box hedges, floral borders and crumbling archways.
Come the summer, the focus falls upon the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, an annual programme of musical performances held at the Glyndebourne country house. The festival began in 1934 and has now become part of the “season” of events attended by British high society. Indeed, the festival recommends “formal or vintage attire or the height of contemporary fashion” so it is common to see outlandishly dressed attendees throughout the town.
Autumn is all about the Lewes Bonfire Societies who lead an annual procession through the town on 5 November (or 4th, if it falls on a Sunday). Members drag flaming tar barrels through the streets or carry fiery crosses to salute 17 Protestant martyrs burned at the stake here in the 1550s.
History
The settlement of Lewes developed as far back as the Iron Age, given the strategic nature of the place. It lies at a narrow bend in the River Ouse just a few miles inland from Newhaven and the English Channel beyond, while the name is thought to derive from the Old English hlaews, or “hills”, a reference to the high vistas offered here.
Lewes Castle was built in the 11th century to capitalise on the position. It has an odd motte-and-bailey design in that it is one of only two castles in Britain to have two mottes – the raised grounds within the “bailey” walls. The castle featured in the 1264 Battle of Lewes, part of the Second Barons’ War during which Henry III was forced to cede ground to Simon de Montfort, the 6th Earl of Leicester.
The town played a small role in the life of another king Henry too. Despite the royal couple’s brief marriage, Henry VIII gave a rather generous divorce settlement to his fourth wife, which included the timber-framed building on Lewes’s Southover High Street, now known as Anne of Cleves House. While it is thought the Queen never visited t
