Lewes Things to Do

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The South Downs is a 100 miles long series of hills stretching from East Sussex to Hampshire in Southern England. The South Downs are a very popular hiking spot and there exists a long distance trail - the South Downs Way - which walkers and hikers can follow across the Downs. It starts in Eastbourne and ends 100 miles to the west in Winchester. Along the route is some of the best scenery in England.

Lewes is a good base for hiking on the Downs as it’s only a few kilometres away. We walked from Lewes to Glynde before climbing onto the Downs near West Firle. We returned via Southese and the river Ouse. This was a walk of about 15 miles and it took us about 7 hours.

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Lewes’s best known resident was Thomas Paine, an 18th century writer and radical thinker. He moved to Lewes in 1768 and founded a debating club (at an inn where the White Hart Hotel now stands) in which he developed and expounded his revolutionary ideas. His first major work was “Common Sense”, in which he argued for American Independence from Britain while his best known work, “The Rights of Man” was written at the time of the French revolution and was hugely controversial at the time. The house where Paine lived from 1768-74 is beside the Brewer’s Arms on the High Street while the White Hart Hotel commemorates him with a blue plaque.

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The gardens of Southover Grange, a 16th century Elizabethan house, are one of the nicest spots in Lewes. Southover Grange is below high street, and from the gardens there are excellent views of Lewes castle.

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There are excellent views of Lewes from Chapel Hill, to the east of the town.
To get here from Lewes High Street: walk down the hill past the WW2 memorial heading towards Cliffe High Street. Continue straight on this street, passing Harvey’s Brewery on the left and go over a bridge and continue straight until the junction with Malling Street (just beyond the church of St. Thomas a Becket on your left) . Cross Malling Street and walk up the narrow Chapel Hill. This climbs steeply towards Lewes Golf Club and just before you reach the clubhouse you’ll be rewarded with excellent views back over Lewes.

Well this is one tourist trap you really ought to fall into. The Lewes Tourist Information Centre is packed with brochures and guides to local sights, up-and-coming concerts and beautiful bed and breakfast establishments. There are multilingual staff in attendance and everything you need covering Lewes in particular but also the wider county of Sussex and the South East generally should be here. For those brave souls intending to cover the entire Kingdom there is also a good selection of literature covering other destinations within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And lest I forget, there are the ubiquitous selection of tea-towels and key rings on sale too!

I'm sure you're all aware of the nursery rhyme ' Here we go 'round the mulberry bush'. You aren't?! Then allow me to sing it for you...

'Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,
Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
On a cold and frosty morning.'

...Quite! It is not Shakespeare. It is not epic in scale or teeming with rhythmic rhyme schemes. The remaining verses are mind-numbingly repetitive as they run through a myriad of work tasks to perform from washing clothes to baking bread but that is the point. According to some folk historians this nursery rhyme started off as a work song chanted by the inmates of Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire as they marched repetitively around the circular exercise yard. For there, in the middle of the yard, there was..a mulberry bush! Well, Southover Grange is hardly a penal institution (Lewes does have a real live prison on the southern edge of town) but it does have one of the most magnificent mulberry trees you are ever likely to see. Believe it or not it is genuinely reckoned to be over 350 years old! Until recently you could stroll underneath and secretly snaffle the odd berry...the only cost being the indelible juice that will ruin your clothes with a beautiful shade of red. At the moment the old boy is fenced off together with a nearby tree for a bit of prudent pruning. Next year have your rhyme at the ready!

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There are more than a few hidden gems in Lewes, and the Lewes House Sculpture Garden is one of my favourites. Just down the High Street, nestled away behind one of the very nicest council buildings you are ever likely to see - 'er, Lewes House, unsurprisingly - and off an alleyway called Church Twitten, you'll find a beautiful little garden peppered with sculptures. Soothingly restfully in Summer or Winter - not that Lewes is a teemingly busy hellhole! - it's certainly worth a gander.The art on display changes regularly and the exhibits are often for sale too - but alas, they don't usually come cheap. However, entrance to the sculpture garden is free and terribly low key. Just walk through the open gate and down the path. By the way, if you end up surrounded by buff envelopes you've taken the wrong door and ended up in the council post room!

Fear not dear reader! This is not some gruesome fairytale but a true story of a Bloomsbury Woolf named Virginia and her husband Leonard. The Round House is so called because it first saw the light of day as a working windmill. It was erected in 1802 by public subscription in the hope that it's work would help to alleviate the food shortages felt during the Napoleonic Wars. However, it's sails were removed 33 years later. I can hardly believe that the wind itself had done a runner but perhaps a better hill had become available? In any case back in June 1919 the celebrated literary 'pin-up' (I use the word advisedly for I have seen the dear lady's portrait!) purchased the Round House for £300 (rather more nowadays!). Alas they never got around to moving in as they found somewhere bigger in which they could pace around moodily in greater comfort. So after two months they sold it on and moved to the nearby village Rodmell - where they lived until 29th March 1941 when Virginia threw herself into the River Ouse. Out of interest, I can reveal that a few years back a local auction house sold the walking stick she left on the river bank before her fateful 'swim'. I held the curious item but did not feel inclined to bid...