Lewes History Group

Please note: this Bulletin is being put on the website one month after publication. Alternatively you can receive the Bulletin by email as soon as it is published, by becoming a member of the Lewes History Group, and renewing your membership annually.

1.    Next meeting: 13 January 2025, Sally Howard, ‘Virginia Trembath’s wartime diary’
2.    A.G.M. Report
3.    Treasurer’s Report (by Phil Green)
4.    Victorian & Edwardian Lewes: Churches, Chapels & Worship project group
5.    The Lord’s Place (by Barbara Abbs)
6.    Dawson’s map of Lewes Borough
7.    The Royal Agricultural Society’s Show at Lewes (by Chris Grove)
8.    A Lewes Golden Jubilee mug
9.    Lewes Bonfire Boys by Thomas Henwood
10.  Wilfully destroying their clothes
11.  Lewes Castle from the Wall Lands

1.    Next Meeting               7.30 p.m.            Zoom        Monday 13 January 2025
Sally Howard           Virginia Trembath’s wartime diary

Sally Howard’s grandmother, Virginia Trembath, a teenager at the outbreak of World War II came to Glyndebourne to help with the care of the children from a large London nursery evacuated to Glyndebourne. She kept a diary during this period that shines a remarkable light on the way at least some young women were emancipated by the war, and on living conditions on the Home Front in this part of Sussex. Her social life was impressive.

Members can register without charge to receive a Zoom access link for the event at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9GytjwX-R0qRZDfMG8bYsA#/registration.

Non-members can attend via Ticketsource.co.uk/lhg (price £4.00).

2.        A.G.M. Report                                    

1. The annual reports from the acting Chair and the Treasurer were approved. The final Treasurer’s Report is below.
2. Appointment of officers for 2025. The following were appointed:
   1. Chair: Ian McClelland
   1. Treasurer: Phil Green;
   1. Secretary: Krystyna Weinstein;
   1. Executive committee: Ann Holmes (Chair for EC meetings), John Kay (Bulletin editor), Bill Kocher & Paul Yates (Website managers) & Chris Taylor (Membership). Ian McClelland remains our ‘Street Stories’ lead..
3. Membership subscription. Your Committee’s recommendations that the annual subscription should remain at £10 p.a. per member; that admission to evening meetings should be free for members; and that admissions charges for non-members should remain at £4 per meeting, were all approved.
4. Neil & Barbara Merchant, who had to step down from the committee during the year, were thanked for their many years of invaluable service to LHG as chair and website manager. Victoria Moy, who is leaving the area, was also thanked for her service as our publicity lead.

3.         Treasurer’s Report                                           (by Phil Green)

The final report for 2023/24 is as below. As anticipated, the report shows a modest surplus for the year and a satisfactory overall balance.

4.         Victorian & Edwardian Lewes: Churches, Chapels & Worship project group

The first of what we hope will be several project groups to study Victorian & Edwardian Lewes is about to start work in January, with half a dozen members expressing interest. If you would like to join us, please contact John Kay (contact details at the end of this Bulletin).

We know already that between 1837 and 1914 Lewes had seven Anglican churches and six non-conformist churches that operated throughout the whole period. Non-conformist churches came and went – three chapels active in 1837 closed before 1914, while the Roman Catholic church and four other non-conformist churches opened after 1837 and were still active in 1914. Yet others, including the Salvation Army, came and went within the study period. We know too that overall Lewes was quite a hotbed of non-conformism, including many influential individuals in the town.

We shall start with data collection. What churches and chapels were active when? Who were their clergymen and ministers? Who were their leading lay members and who did they attract to their congregations? Our main sources will be church records, local directories and the local press reports of their activities.

Phase two will require us to assess the roles the different churches and chapels in the town’s social, civic, political and business life. Did religion played a much bigger part in people’s lives then than it does today? How successful were the different churches and chapels, and how did they interact with each other?

This is just the first of what we hope will be several project groups investigating different aspects of Lewes life in this period, and it is hoped that groups to study health & social care, education, civic society, business and sport will also be formed shortly.

5.         The Lord’s Place                                            (by Barbara Abbs)

Was there an extensive and elaborate renaissance style garden attached to a house called Lord’s Place on the site of Lewes Priory? In the past highly regarded antiquarians and local historians have queried the existence of any such house and its gardens, but a different sort of scholarship in the 21st century has challenged this. Garden archaeology, aerial photography and radio-carbon dating has recast the story of Lord’s Place and its garden, and The Mount by the junction of Station Road and Priory Street is the significant indicator.

There are no pictures of the garden at Lord’s Place and little in the way of documentation except for early maps. What there is however is archaeological evidence of ‘an exceptionally elaborate formal garden layout of the late 16th century or early 17th century type.’ shown by many raised terraces which indicate ‘a series of differently arranged compartments of rather varied size and shape’. These compartments, surrounded by raised walks are very typical of gardens of this period in England.

This following comment by Garden Archaeologist Paul Everson appears in his report on the site which had, he wrote: ‘its origins in an occasion – more years ago than I care to work out – when I went to Lewes and gave a lecture about the archaeological remains of early gardens. This was essentially about the variety of garden remains we, interested people working for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) as it then was, kept encountering as earthworks around the country. It was a bit of a new topic at the time … During the discussion afterwards, people said ‘do you know about our Mount? are you staying overnight? … if so we could look together tomorrow morning’. I was, we did, and it was a garden mount.’

The subsequent detailed and lengthy report, ‘The post-Dissolution mansion and gardens of Lords Place’ was written for RCHME in 1993, with appendices by Dr Colin Brent and Dr Freda Anderson. It looks at the whole site, not just The Mount. For many years it was thought that The Mount had been either the site of an earlier fortification, a spoil heap perhaps to do with salt production or a religious site built by the monks of St Pancras, a Calvary as it is named on some early maps and as it is used today on Good Friday. Further confirmation of the Mount’s age however appeared in 2015. Archaeologists from the University of Reading’s ‘Round Mounds Project’ discovered, using radio carbon dating, that the Mount dated from the late 16^th to early 17^th century, that is after the Dissolution and destruction of Lewes Priory. The likelihood that The Mount is an Elizabethan prospect mound is thus very strong.

Mounts, often a feature in larger British gardens by the 1530’s, were designed both to see the garden from above and to look out over the adjoining landscape. John Leland, the 16^th century poet and antiquary, described one garden mount as “writhen about with degrees (steps) like turnings of cokishilles (cockleshells) to cum to the top without payn”. Early engravings of the Priory Mount, show a similar winding path up to the top. There is evidence also that The Mount was being mown in 1604 and 1605. Interestingly, an inhabitant of 1 Priory Street, which overlooks the Mount discovered some time ago that that house had been called Prospect Cottage.

The garden that could be overlooked from the mound was composed of several different areas. The Dripping Pan is one and the Convent field another. Earthwork terraces, or raised walks, on a grand scale and still visible today, surround these, as garden archaeologist Paul Everson says in his report. They form a continuous walk round the different areas and it is very probable that in one of them near Lord’s Place itself, there would have been a knot garden, a very popular feature at the time. ‘Knots’ or patterns of evergreen plants, possibly filled with sand or crushed brick, would have been made of evergreen aromatic plants such as germander, hyssop, winter savoury, lavender and rue. Box plants were not used as frequently as they are today and patterns varied from the simple to the complex. Further away, and to the south of the site near the Cockshut, were the Pond Garden and the Saffron Garden and other enclosures which seem to have been carefully arranged and possibly themed. These varied ‘rooms’ gave an element of surprise which was to be found in the best gardens of the time. Early maps show a long straight pond running north to south, and the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1873 shows distinctive earthworks in the Pond Garden, which is south of the Priory Ruins. It is very probable that, as in other Elizabethan gardens, the monk’s fishponds or ‘stews’ were reconfigured as ornamental ponds. Henry VIII’s garden at Hampton Court, one of the very few Renaissance gardens to survive, had a ‘Pond garden’, a ‘Mound garden’ and a Privy garden.

In 1538 most of the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes was destroyed by orders of Thomas Cromwell. The Prior’s Lodging however remained and Thomas’s son, Gregory Cromwell had the use of the building, then known as Priory House or Lord’s Place. He and his wife, although initially pleased with the ‘commodious’ residence, did not remain there long. There was an outbreak of plague in Lewes, which had prevented a visit by King Henry, and as Thomas Cromwell had acquired, amongst many other estates, Leeds Castle, Gregory took up residence there in 1539. A large part of the site of the Priory, the ruins and the Southover demesne lands were leased to Nicholas Jenney in June 1539, but the rest remained with Cromwell. This consisted of ‘the garden adjoining the new buildings and the malthouse; the other garden and orchard as they are enclosed between the millpond towards the malthouse and the gardener’s house there; the moiety of the dovehouse at the north end; a stable and barn called the Proctor’s barn; a stable and house called the Fish House; the pond garden with free fishing in the mill pond and the Podpool; and all the swans and cygnets on the same ponds and the hawks nesting in the premises’.

After Thomas Cromwell’s execution in 1540, his estates in Sussex were granted to Anne of Cleves and reverted to Queen Elizabeth on Anne’s death. She granted Lord’s Place in 1559 to Sir Richard Sackville, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex. Richard’s son, Thomas, Baron Buckhurst, a courtier, poet and diplomat, became Lord Treasurer in 1599 and then Earl of Dorset under King James I. It is that cultured and wealthy courtier Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, who is the best candidate for the creator of a garden at Lord’s Place. Thomas Sackville would have had the impetus to create a garden, probably at great speed, for in 1577 he expected a visit from Queen Elizabeth.

At that time gardens were a vital requirement when visited by monarchs, who continued the mediaeval tradition of royal progresses. To ensure that a courtier’s position was maintained or improved, not only houses and gardens, but sometimes whole landscapes had to be constructed.’ Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, died in 1608, and his son and heir Robert Sackville died a year later. The 2^nd Earl of Dorset was succeeded by his son, Richard, the 3^rd Earl, who married Lady Anne Clifford, and was described by one writer as “one of the seventeenth century’s most accomplished gamblers and wastrels”. He lived at another much grander Sackville property, Knole in Kent, but occasionally visited Lord’s Place, as, like his grandfather, he was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex. Lady Anne Clifford, a noted recorder of events, mentions bull baiting, cards and dice in May 1616, a muster of militia in August 1617 and more gambling in March 1619.

After the 3^rd Earl’s death in 1624, Lady Anne was given a life-interest in Lord’s Place and after that it passed to her son-in-law, John Tufton, the Earl of Thanet. Lord’s Place was taxed in 1664 for 33 hearths. The building must have been on a grand scale. John Tufton’s son, Thomas, authorised the demolition of the ‘great’ house in June 1668. Over the next 350 years, the site became divided into a patchwork of gardens, orchards, and later football and cricket pitches and tennis courts. It is worth walking round the playing fields around and beyond Priory Park and climbing the Mount and imagining what could have been there in Elizabethan times.

Sources: I am indebted to Dr Colin Brent and Paul Everson; Paul Everson ‘The post-Dissolution mansion and gardens of Lords Place’ (RCHME), 1993;  the Round Mounds Project Website; PRO C 69/693; ESRO ACC 3893/10 F; Sussex Archaeological Collections vol.49, pp. 86-88; the Report of the visit of Queen Elizabeth, Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol.5, p.192. Robert M. Cooper, ‘The Literary Guide and Companion to Southern England’, (1998); ‘The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford’ (2003); ESRO SAS WH 191.

6.         Dawson’s map of Lewes Borough

This map drawn about 1832 by Lieutenant Robert K. Dawson of the Royal Engineers shows the outline of Lewes Borough before and after the 1832 Reform Act. The map itself is based on the national map created a few years earlier by the Ordnance Survey – young officers for the artillery end the Royal Engineers corps were trained in surveying at Woolwich prior to being awarded their commissions.

The boundaries of the pre-1832 borough are shown in green. It included the Lewes parishes of All Saints and St Michael, together with the more urban sections of the parishes of St John-sub-Castro & St Anne (here labelled as St Peter & St Mary Westout). Under the Reform Act the borough of Lewes retained its two MPs, but was expanded to include the area shown in red. This, described here as the ‘proposed boundary’ now also included the entire parish of Cliffe, parts of South Malling and Southover, more land belonging to St John-sub-Castro and St Anne’s parishes and a small section of Kingston. The new boundaries were to be drawn partly along the lines of the Cockshut Stream and the River Ouse, but otherwise created by lines drawn between some of the windmill sites on the Downs around the town. The mills chosen were the smock mill on Juggs Lane; the town mill, then quite newly moved to the site where the prison was later to be built; South Malling Mill; and the site of the former Cliffe Mill on the Downs to the east of the town.

7.         The Royal Agricultural Society’s Show at Lewes    (by Chris Grove)

The Royal Agricultural Society selected Lewes as the venue for its July 1852 annual show, which was held in different venues each year. Sussex was particularly noted for its oxen and its sheep. The tented show-yards, for cattle and implements, were erected to the south-east of the town, so convenient for stock arriving by rail. Numerous refreshment booths were provided nearby. The railway also brought numerous lady visitors from Brighton, attracted by a Grand National Horticultural Show arranged by the high constables, and held on the Bowling Green in the castle. The show of Ericas and geraniums was noted as excellent, and the fruit included grapes, strawberries, excellent ‘pines’, apricots, nectarines and melons. Vegetables included cucumbers. The Brighton Railway Company offered a silver cup to the nurseryman displaying the best roses.

Events commenced with a lecture on the class of diseases to which domestic animals were liable, owing to the presence of parasitic creatures on or in their bodies, particularly those that might persist in the meat of infected pigs. Irish pigs were stated to be especially risky. The cattle yard included many Sussex and Devon cattle, as well as Shorthorns and Herefords, with entries from across England. The Sussex oxen were also valuable draught beasts, important in a county of strong clays and steep hills, though the general superiority of horses for farm work was a matter about which there could be no dispute.

The sheep included Romney Marsh sheep, as well as the more usual Southdowns, Leicesters and Cotswolds. It was noted that the Romney Marsh breed, though valuable animals capable of enduring great privations, were, as a wandering breed, much less happy to be penned-up for the show. The ewes refused their food and did not show themselves to great advantage. There was also an exhibition of poultry, a new departure for the Society.

The displays of agricultural machinery and equipment in the implement yard were compared to those at the Great Exhibition, held the previous year. It was claimed that three implement makers alone had more on display in Lewes than had been shown at the glass palace. The quality had also increased, but prices had fallen in response to increased demand. The range shown extended from milking equipment to reaping machines, whose efficacy was displayed in harvesting some of John Ellman’s rye grown on the Wallands. A gorse-bruising machine displayed by a London manufacturer attracted particular attention. A thrashing and winnowing machine by Messrs Clayton & Shuttleworth separated the small from the large grains, measured off the work into four bushel sacks, and when the sacks were full rang a bell to attract the attention of the workman superintending its operation.

Sources: 17 July 1852 Illustrated London News & 18 May 1852 Sussex Advertiser

8.         A Lewes Golden Jubilee mug In Bulletin no.73, back in August 2016, we noted the offer on ebay of a decorated plate made to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. The plate carried the mark of J. Buckman’s China Warehouse, Lewes, and also bore the name of the mayor, Alderman Joseph Farncombe. Offered on ebay just before Christmas 2024 was a companion piece, a Golden Jubilee mug from the same source and decorated with the same designs.

9.         Lewes Bonfire Boys by Thomas Henwood This impressive print of the 1853 Lewes Bonfire celebrations by artist Thomas Henwood (1797-1861) was sold on 4 November 2024 at Gorringe’s auction house for £420, rather above the estimate of £80-£120.

Included in the same lot was a second print by John Henry Hurdis of the dinner for the town’s poorer residents held at the Dripping Pan to celebrate Queen Victoria’ coronation in June 1838. Over 600 of the town’s gentry and tradesmen and their families served the meal, which included 232 joints of meat, 414 plum puddings and beer from all the town’s breweries. The main table was 100 yards long, and there were 68 side tables. There were processions, bands, sports, cannon and, of course, fireworks

10.      Wilfully destroying their clothes

Local newspapers report several cases in the mid-1860s of women admitted to the vagrant ward of the Lewes Union workhouse wilfully destroying their own clothes after admission. One woman was reportedly discovered by staff “in a state of nature”. Their motive was to force the Union’s officers to provide them with new clothes before they could be sent on their way on the following morning. The Union staff didn’t know quite what they should do, so it was left to the duty magistrates to come up with a suitable deterrent.

11.      Lewes Castle from the Wall Lands

The print below, probably from the second half of the 18^th century, shows the view towards Lewes Castle from the ‘Wall Lands’, where a group of labourers are busy harvesting a hay crop. It was among a batch of local prints attributed to ‘Lambert after Basire’ and offered for sale at Gorringe’s weekly auctions in November 2024. This is, I think, a print made by the engraver James Basire (1730-1802), official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries, from a James Lambert painting

John Kay                                             01273 813388                                       johnkay56@gmail.com

Contact details for Friends of the Lewes History Group promoting local historical events

Sussex Archaeological Society:  http://sussexpast.co.uk/events
Lewes Priory Trust:  http://www.lewespriory.org.uk/news-listing
Lewes Archaeological group:  http://lewesarchaeology.org.uk and go to ‘Lectures’
Friends of Lewes:  http://friends-of-lewes.org.uk/diary/
Lewes Priory School Memorial Chapel Trust:  https://www.lewesprioryschoolmemorialchapeltrust.org/

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/LewesHistoryGroup