Lewes History Group

Please note that this course is now fully booked

This course is for Lewes History Group members. See our Membership page to join the Group.

A lot of information about the period between 1851 and 1911 can be obtained from the detail given to the enumerators who collected the forms from households for the decennial census.

Using background notes, and transcripts of pages of the first comprehensive census (1851) we will explore the potential of the information about households for urban, rural, and family history.

Full details and booking information

Please book before 1^st October 2021

A Fitzroy House Event

Julian Bell: Strange South Downs

Julian Bell talks about Harold Mockford, the great senior artist of this region of England.

The oil paintings of Mockford, who was born in Eastbourne in 1932, deliver a unique poetic vision of downland landscape that has long held the admiration of his fellow Sussex artists. Bell will try to put this work in context, relating it to other art of the locality and to the history Mockford has lived through.

Julian Bell is a painter and art writer who has long been based in Lewes. His books include ‘What is Painting?’ and ‘Vincent van Gogh’, and he often contributes to the London Review of Books and New York Review of Books.

Plain, an exhibition of new paintings by Bell, will open at the Star Gallery, Lewes on 1 October – find out more

Venue: Fitzroy House, Lewes

Details and tickets: from Fitzroy House website

Julian Bell in his studio. Image at Fitzroy House website

A Fitzroy House Event

Diana Crook: The Ladies of Miller’s Story

A wonderful talk exploring the Ladies’ links with the Charlestonians and other well-known figures, their range of exhibitions during the war, and the rude names and jokes they managed to attract.

In 1939 two remarkable sisters purchased the former home of a miller in Lewes High Street and converted the stables into an art centre. From there, with the help of their Bloomsbury friends, the ladies kept the flag of culture flying during the war.

Afterwards they set up the influential Miller’s Press, encouraging artists to experiment in lithography. This entertaining account documents the ladies’ earlier years and the tragedy that inspired their artistic commitment, as well as describing cultural life in Lewes during and after the war.

Venue: Fitzroy House, Lewes

Details and tickets: from Fitzroy House website

The Artwave exhibition: ‘The Ladies of Miller’s, A tale of Wartime Arts in Lewes’  continues on the weekends of 18th-19th and 25th-26th September 2021. Doors open 10am-4pm.