Lewes Town of Culture : Where Culture and Nature Intertwine
Lewes Town of Culture : Where Culture and Nature Intertwine
If I had to choose one word to describe Lewes, it would be this:
Belonging.
Wanda and I arrived here in May 2000 with two toddlers, aged 1 and 3. We did not arrive with any grand plan to stay forever. But Lewes has a way of quietly weaving itself into the fabric of family life, your heart and soul.
Our children grew up here, from nursery and primary school through to sixth form, in Brighton, before university in London. Life unfolded in the most ordinary places: Southover Grange Gardens after school, birthday parties beneath the trees, gatherings in rooms at Southover Grange or the Friends Meeting House, and, of course, family homes. There were swimming lessons at the Leisure Centre and long summer afternoons at the Pells Lido.
Through Lewes Swimming Club, they found their own paths — football for one, drama for the other.
Meanwhile, we walked everywhere: along the Winterbourne and the Ouse, through the Railway Land Local Nature Reserve, and out toward the Downs. With the sea at Seaford and Hope Gap only minutes away, it soon became obvious that our family needed one more addition — a dog. It’s a great place to own a dog. There are countless walks in every direction from your doorstep.
Lewes does not hide its history. It shoves it in your face.
There is the 12th-century castle on its mound, a textbook motte-and-bailey, the ruins of the Priory, and streets full of architectural surprises from the 14th century onwards. There are the ideas of Tom Paine and John Evelyn, the Protestant martyrs burned here for their beliefs, and even the unexpected fact that Greenpeace began here.
There is a modern library, friends in every corner, different neighbourhoods, and too many pubs to get around in a day, let alone a weekend – each with its own character.
Lewes is a small town, but it contains multitudes.
Landscape as Culture
Lewes sits above a river valley where chalk Downs meet woodland.
From the town, you can see toward the Channel, toward the North Downs, and across the folds of the Sussex landscape. The Greenwich Meridian passes through the town. The South Downs Way runs nearby. Geography is not abstract here — it shapes everyday life.
You can leave the High Street and within minutes be beside the River Ouse, climbing onto the Downs toward Glynde or Ditchling, or wandering through woodland paths.
Over the past few years, I’ve been involved in surveying Lewes’s veteran and notable trees as part of the Woodland Trust’s Lost Woods Project. Many of those trees now appear in the National Ancient Tree Inventory. I’ve led walks around town introducing people to these remarkable living witnesses to history.
They are part of Lewes’s heritage just as much as its buildings.
The seasons here are vivid.
Winter brings mist rising from the river. Spring brings wildflowers on the chalk. Summer opens the landscape wide. Autumn turns the woods copper and gold.
The landscape is not simply a backdrop to life in Lewes. It is part of it.
I suspect I have photographed every inch of the Winterbourne and Cockshut streams from their sources to where they meet the Ouse.
Lewes has also shaped our creative lives. My own work in relief printing, writing and photography draws heavily on the surrounding landscape.
My wife’s pottery and weaving are rooted in the textures of place. Even our son’s internationally recognised jewellery brand ‘the ouze’ echoes the river in its name.
Lewes is a place where creativity grows naturally out of living.
And it is a wonderful place for childhood.
Each July, the Patina Moving On Parade celebrates young people stepping into the next stage of life — a reminder that the town values its younger generations.
Growing Up in Lewes
For children, Lewes offers an extraordinary range of opportunities.
It is a town where almost everything can be reached on foot or by bicycle. Sport is everywhere — swimming, tennis, squash, athletics, bowls, football, cycling and more.
Alongside that runs a vibrant creative life: theatre, choirs, folk music, cinema, comedy, craft workshops and countless local initiatives.
Participation is part of the town’s culture. You join things.
Our own introduction to Lewes culture happened almost immediately. We were literally standing in our front doorway with the keys on moving day in May 2000, when a neighbour approached and invited us to join a Bonfire Society.
We have marched ever since.
Lewes gives children roots. Brighton, just a short train ride away, gives teenagers a window into the wider world.
Young people grow up here, leave for a while, and often return. Easily achieved as we are so well connected via road, rail, water and air to the rest of the UK, a hop across to France, and the world beyond via airports and international railway hubs in the South East of England.
Where Everyday Life Becomes Culture
For me, Lewes is a place where everyday life quietly becomes culture.
Culture here grows from participation rather than spectatorship.
You march with a Bonfire Society.
You volunteer in woodland surveys.
You sing in a choir, act in a play, or help run a comedy night.
You take part in Seedy Saturday.
You grow vegetables on an allotment.
You help restore a historic building.
Culture is something people do together.
Lewes’s stories are layered.
There are three historical narratives: the Priory, the castle, Tom Paine’s radical ideas, and the martyrs remembered each Bonfire Night.
But there are quieter stories too: chalk streams, veteran trees, winding twittens and the rhythms of the seasons.
These shape daily life just as much as history books.
Culture in Lewes is therefore not confined to galleries or theatres. It exists in walks, gardens, rivers, clubs and conversations.
It is woven into the life of the town.
And there is another layer that is sometimes overlooked.
Lewes is also home to HM Prison Lewes, the County Law Courts, and the headquarters of Sussex Police. These institutions are part of the town’s civic life, even if the people within them remain largely unseen.
Their presence reminds us that a community is not defined only by celebration and creativity, but also by responsibility, justice and the structures that hold society together.
They too form part of the story of this place.
A Living Landscape Festival
If Lewes were to enjoy a year in the cultural spotlight, I would love to see the town create a Living Landscape Festival.
For one year, Lewes could become a place where culture, landscape and civic life are inseparable.
Imagine artists creating installations along the River Ouse — and tracing the paths of the Winterbourne and Cockshut streams back to their sources.
Imagine guided walks linking the trees of Lewes Arboretum, veteran trees, ancient woodland, and chalk grassland.
Imagine writers, musicians and performers staging events outdoors, tucked into the folds and valleys of this chalk promontory.
Temporary artworks might appear in twittens, gardens and fields.
Schools and youth groups could document the landscape through drawing, film, photography and storytelling.
Alongside this celebration of landscape, Lewes could explore another thread running through the town’s history: conscience, law and justice.
From the Protestant martyrs remembered at Bonfire to the radical thinking of Tom Paine to the modern presence of the law courts, prison, and police headquarters, Lewes has long been a place where ideas and beliefs carry consequences.
A cultural year could invite artists, historians and writers to explore these themes — justice, punishment, responsibility and rehabilitation — through exhibitions, talks and creative work.
Lewes sits at a remarkable meeting point of geography: chalk Downs, woodland, river valley and sea beyond.
A cultural year could turn both the landscape and the civic life of the town into Lewes’s greatest gallery.
Who Might Be Missing?
One group that sometimes feels absent from Lewes’s cultural life is teenagers and young adults.
Lewes is wonderful for children and deeply rewarding for adults, but the years in between can feel like a gap. Many teenagers gravitate toward Brighton for music, nightlife and youth culture.
The answer is not to compete with Brighton.
It is to create space for young people to shape Lewes culture themselves.
That might include youth-led arts and music events, spaces where young people can exhibit or experiment, collaborations between schools and sports clubs, and opportunities for young people to document Lewes through film, podcasts or photography.
When young people create culture rather than simply consume it, they develop a sense of ownership and belonging.
At the same time, Lewes also contains communities who are present but rarely visible in the town’s cultural life: those connected with the prison, the courts and the justice system.
A cultural year could gently open opportunities to acknowledge these parts of Lewes too — through storytelling, education and creative exploration of themes such as justice, responsibility and rehabilitation.
Recognising these layers does not change the essence of Lewes.
It enriches our understanding of it.
The Whole Ecosystem
A Lewes cultural year should bring together the full ecosystem of the town.
Young people and schools bring imagination and new ideas.
Sports clubs and outdoor organisations remind us that Lewes culture is physical and communal as well as artistic.
Environmental groups and land stewards connect the town to the landscape that sustains it.
Artists, makers and independent traders keep Lewes creatively alive.
Community volunteers — from Bonfire Societies to allotment groups — sustain the town’s participatory spirit.
And Lewes is also a centre of civic life. The law courts, prison, Sussex Police headquarters, Lewes Town Council and East Sussex County Council all play roles in the governance and justice of the wider county.
Their presence reminds us that Lewes is not only a historic town or creative hub, but also a place where civic responsibility is carried out every day.
The real strength of Lewes is that culture here is distributed.
It lives in many hands.
A cultural year should therefore serve as a meeting point — bringing together the many energies already shaping the life of this place.
Because in Lewes, culture is not something that happens in a single building or on a single stage.
It happens everywhere.
And it belongs to everyone.
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