Lewes

Lewes
	Lewes Castle, Lewes
Coordinates	50 ° 53 ′ N , 0 ° 1 ′ E Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ N , 0 ° 1 ′ E
OS National Grid	TQ420104
	Lewes
	Lewes
administration
Post town	LEWES
ZIP code section	BN7
prefix	01273
Part of the country	England
region	South East England
Shire county	East Sussex
District	Lewes
Civil Parish	Lewes
British Parliament	Lewes

Lewes [ luɪs ] is a town in the county of East Sussex in England . The city is both the administrative seat of the county and the district of Lewes and has about 16,000 inhabitants.

geography

Lewes is located in the South Downs on the River Ouse , 80 km south of London and about 10 km northeast of Brighton . East of the city, the Downs rise to a large chalk - high bank that is recognizable even from a distance. The associated district is Cliffe , the southern part of the city is called Southover . Other areas of the city are Malling , Wallands and Neville .

history

Memorial to the Battle of Lewes

The name Lewes comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "Hlew", which means mountain. The city is actually on a large hill. But there was already a fortification here in the time of the Romans . In 1148, Lewes received the Charter of Independence from King Stephen .

The Battle of Lewes took place in Lewes in 1264 , at which Simon V. de Montfort King Henry III. and his son, who later became King Edward I , defeated.

One of the "founding fathers" of the USA, Thomas Paine , was a tax collector in Lewes from 1768 and lived there in the 15th century Bull House . He wrote several petitions to get tax collectors paid better and was removed from his post. In 1774 he emigrated to America, where he quickly became one of the representatives of the American independence movement.

On December 27, 1836 , an avalanche fell in Lewes when a large accumulation of snow on the nearby high bank broke off and rolled onto a number of smaller houses. This, the heaviest avalanche in England to date, buried 15 people, eight of whom died. Today a pub called The Snowdrop commemorates the event.

The Lewes community issued its own banknotes in September 2008 to strengthen the local economy. The project initially ran until August 2009 and is also intended to make a contribution to climate protection, as the Lewes pound can only be used to purchase locally produced products. This project has been extended indefinitely. A similar project has been running in the British city of Totnes (Devon) since March 2008.

Attractions

View of Lewes Castle, in the background you can see the chalk cliffs

View of Lewes Castle

The Lewes Castle was soon after the invasion of the Normans in 1066 under William the Conqueror of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey built.

In 1077 William de Warenne and his wife Gundrada founded the Lewes Monastery . It was the first Cluniac monastery in England. In 1537 Henry VIII had the monastery destroyed; the ruins can still be visited today.

The Anne of Cleves House is a building that Anna von Kleve received from Henry VIII as part of her divorce settlement in 1540. However, it was never inhabited by her. Today it houses a museum devoted to the history of Lewes since the 16th century.

Lewes is best known for its annual Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th. The festivities not only commemorate the uncovering of the plot from 1605 , but also the cremation of seventeen Protestant martyrs during the persecution of the Protestants by Queen Maria I (1555–1557). Every year several torchlight procession through the city on this day . They are organized by the so-called bonfire societies (bonfire is a large open fire). There are six of these societies in Lewes, each with its own torchlight procession. Each of these societies has their own traditional costumes (from Tudor suits to Mongolian warriors). Dolls of Guy Fawkes and Pope Paul V , who became head of the Roman Catholic Church in 1605, are always carried through the streets. In addition, each of the bonfire societies has its own dolls on a specific theme. In 2001 a doll that was supposed to represent Osama bin Laden attracted special attention to the event in the press. In memory of the 17 martyrs, 17 burning crosses are carried through the city; there is also a wreath-laying ceremony at the war memorial in the city center. The celebrations culminate in five different large fires in which the puppets are destroyed by fireworks and the flames. Up to 80,000 people come to this local event.

Infrastructure

traffic

Lewes station is a railway junction, it is located on the routes of the Southern Railway Company :

London Victoria - / London Bridge - East Croydon - Lewes - Eastbourne (- Hastings - Ore)
Brighton - Lewes - Eastbourne - Hastings - Ashford International
Lewes - Newhaven - Seaford

At Lewes, the A26 road crosses the A27 road , which accompanies the coast at some distance and which has four lanes to the west.

Bus transport within the scope of public transport is carried out by various bus transport companies. Line group 28/29 / 29B / 29X runs between Brighton and Lewes and is operated at frequent intervals by Brighton & Hove (bus company of the Go-Ahead group). Line 29 continues through Uckfield to Tunbridge Wells .
Other bus routes in Lewes and the surrounding area are also operated by Compass Travel (Sussex) Ltd. mainly on weekdays during the day for shopping, sometimes only every other day of the week. Most of these trips are carried out on behalf of East Sussex County Council .

Facilities

The Fire Brigade East Sussex is a Lewes-based fire service organization providing fire protection and general aid to their county. It was formed in 1974 from the former brigades Brighton, Hastings, Eastbourne and East Sussex. In addition to its headquarters in Lewes, the Fire Brigade has two divisional headquarters in Brighton and Eastbourne, six shift stations, six day-manned stations and twelve retained stations. The staff of the Grafschaft-Fire Brigade consists of full-time and part-time firefighters, full-time employees in the control and radio center as well as administration in Lewes and other non-uniformed personnel.