Lewes History Group

This year’s Heritage Open Days weekend in September is being marked with the launch of three free leaflets for self-guided walks around the town. These allow visitors to explore the historic, architectural and environmental aspects of Lewes at their own pace, and because they are self-guided, the walks can be taken at any time of year.

The three walks leaflets are Lewes Local Architects Walk, Lewes Town Nature Walk, and Lewes High Street Walk.

Also, linked with the Town Nature Walk, the Friends of Lewes is organising a design your own nature trail competition for Lewes families.

Link to more details and to download the three walk leaflets

Next year, the Friends of Lewes hope to resume their traditional Heritage Open Days programme of local buildings opening up to the public for a weekend in September.

Lewes Heritage Open Days are organised by the Friends of Lewes

The Lewes History Group published its latest book on 1 September 2020.

As part of the Lewes History Group’s Street Stories series about our town, this book uncovers change and continuity in ‘The Pells’, the original name for this spring-fed landscape.

It documents with maps, artwork, documents and photographs, how the uses of this area changed over time – looking at long-gone features such as sacred springs, medieval swanneries, a river navigation lock and a paper mill – and how these have contributed to the current landscape and natural history.

It also tells the story of the 19th century ‘pleasure grounds’, swimming pool, and recreation ground – remarkable achievements for a small market town.

The story includes the history of the former farmhouse, the oldest dwelling in the Pells, once part of the Shelley family’s domain, and reveals how the Lewes Cattle Market Company, which bought the farm as a site for a cattle market, became an accidental housing developer to help pay its bills.
Click on image for a sample page

The richly-illustrated, 160-page book covers many other intriguing elements of the Pells and can be ordered now at £12.50 using this order form, and available from the Tourist Information Centre, Skylark, Pells Pool, and from other outlets to be confirmed.

A Zoom Webinar

Ruth Thomson, Sarah Bayliss, John Webber: The Pells of Lewes: From wetlands to popular Victorian suburb

Following many months with no meetings during the pandemic, Lewes History Group is restarting its programme using the Zoom platform for talks from September onwards.

The 14 September talk will see the launch of the latest book in LHG’s Street Stories series: ‘The Pells of Lewes: Pool, Park, People, Places’.

Given by Ruth Thomson, Sarah Bayliss and John Webber (three of the authors), the talk focuses on some aspects of book’s extensive content, including the natural history of the Pells, the development of the park, swimming pool and housing, and memories of Pells school.

This richly-illustrated, 160-page book will be on sale for £12.50 from 1 September 2020 via this website, and other outlets.

To access this talk, you need to register your intention some days in advance: Click to Register

There is no charge for this talk.

After registering and well before the talk, we will send you a confirmation email containing information about how to join the webinar itself.

Please join the webinar at 7:20pm.

We would recommend a computer screen or an iPad as a minimum screen-size for viewing our webinars.

Our presenters will be speaking live, and you can ask questions by typing in the Q&A box in Zoom.

See the Talks page for a list of  forthcoming monthly events organised by the Lewes History Group.