Lewes Castle

As usual work and life have gotten in the way of regular blogging again so there haven't been any posts for a little while.  Hopefully my normal erratic service will now be resumed!


My job often takes me to the wilds of West Sussex and occasionally into the badlands of East Sussex.  Usually this involves attending a meeting and then heading back home with little chance to see any of the local sites, but the other day I found myself with a bit of spare time after a meeting on Lewes.

Now, I'm known for an interest in castles and Lewes is the site of the remains of an 11th century castle and, of course, the Battle of Lewes.  The battle (as I'm sure everyone knows) was fought between Simon de Montfort and Henry III in 1264.  Henry rather foolishly made the mistake of leaving his nice comfy castle to fight and would have been ok if his son Prince Edward hadn't gone charging off table leaving his father somewhat exposed.

The castle itself now consists of a couple of main towers and an attached small museum and was a nice spot to while away an hour or so although I did have to negotiate my way round the wedding reception that was taking place in the grounds.

The castle was started in 1069 by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and the original castle mound is now adjacent to the main castle itself...

You can make out the mound behind the buildings in the foreground

The view from the tower

..and again. 

The museum itself houses a number of Bronze age and Iron age items

Beaker people pot (...are they still called that?  It's been a while since my Archeology GCSE)

Some rather impressive swords and spear heads

 

And an even more impressive model of Lewes. 

Lewes itself is a pretty little town chock full of antique shops and bookshops (and nightmarish parking!).  I also discovered that one of my heroes, Thomas Paine lived there for some time, in this house...

I seem to be having regular meetings in Lewes at the moment...certainly nicer than East Grinstead!