In the archives of The Keep at Falmer is a 3-D model more than 5 ft long, made in about 1962. It shows how Lewes would have looked if a startling 1960s proposal for the ‘Lewes Inner Relief Road’ had gone through.

This motorway-standard road was intended to relieve the traffic congestion in Lewes and protect the High Street area, but it would also have had the effect of cutting the town in two.

It would have run from the Prison Crossroads through The Paddock, skirting Lewes Castle and on to the Phoenix Causeway, and pedestrians would have had to use a footbridge or tunnel to cross from one side of Lewes to the other.

Residents of Lewes, along with organisations like the Friends of Lewes mobilised against these plans, resulting in the building of the Southern Bypass, which we know today.

In Carving Through Lewes, Jill Goulder takes us along the planned road, showing how Lewes would have changed had it been allowed to go ahead.