Halland Forge Hotel

Mount Caburn

by barryg23

Mount Caburn is a 146 metre peak on the South Downs, located about 1 mile east of Lewes. There are excellent views in all directions from the top, with Lewes in the distance, the main South Downs ridge to the south and the village of Glynde to the east. There is a seat at the summit where you can relax and enjoy the views though it is often very windy up here so it’s not a place to linger too long. On the summit are the remains of an iron-age fort.

Lewes, aka Pyromaniac's-ville.

by tna

We are new residents of Lewes, but it didn't take long for us to figure out what makes this town 'tick'. Tick being the appropriate word...bombs, fire, crackers, explosions, fireworks, catherine-wheels, fountains, bonfires, burning effigies. This small little rural Sussex town has FIVE firework guilds, not to mention those of all the outlying villages, who all come together in November (pretty much for the whole month, starting mid-October) and see who can set the most stuff on fire. It's great!!

Lewes- Burning the Pope every November

by biggeorge

"Bonfire night"

Lewes is a litle town in the middle of East Sussex that's pretty unremarkable apart from being capital of the county ,and going off it's head every November the 5th when celebrating " bonfire " night.

To comemerate the foiling of the gunpowder plot , where catholics tried to blow up the houses of parliament ,and the earlier burning at the stake of local protestants by " Bloody Mary" . The local people are formed into " bonfire societies " and each society dresses as a group on a set theme and burns crosses and effigies of the pope.

They also burn effigies of world leaders , Bin Laden and George Bush have been burnt in recent years.

This sort of thing used to be very common in Sussex but is restricted to a few places nowadays because it's not very PC.

They claim the little paper popes are of the pope of the time of the Lewes martyrs ,but i have my doubts.

Outsiders are discouraged because of the popularity of the event but it's one of the absolute highlights of any visit to Britain , like going back 500 years ( unless you're Catholic when it's probably quite offensive). It's never covered in the media for this reason so you probably won't hear much about it anywhere else.