| Share page |
|
LEWES 231 |
||
|
Marquis of Abergavenny ... one-half.
Duke of Norfolk ...... one-quarter.
Earl de la Warr ...... one-quarter.
The actual (copyhold) owners of the Castle are—
Marquis of Abergavenny ... one-half.
Earl de la Warr ...... one-quarter.
Baron Sackville ...... one-quarter.
The Castle, however, is rented, and the seventeenth-century barbican house in High Street is owned by the Sussex Archaeological Society, which maintains an admirable museum of Sussex antiquities and a library of books relating to the county. In addition to many architectural fragments, rubbings of brasses, prints, and so on, there are stocks from Horsted Parva, an eighteenth-century plough from Northease, and the old Lewes fire-engine, a panelled tank of oak on four solid wheels, with hand rails to force the water up the pipe ; it is dated 1783. Similar ones exist at Rye and at Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Fire-engines of some sort existed in Lewes as early as 1681.
The town defences utilised both the ancient camp by the river and the Norman Castle, and though all the gates have disappeared there are considerable remains of flint rubble walling. From the site of Westgate, under the Castle keep, the wall can be traced down the hill-side and then along by the trees of Elm Grove to a passage straight up the hill called Water Gate Lane. All Saints Church was just within the area of defence, and the wall bordered its yard. Along Eastgate Street near the river the walling remains for some distance with a late doorway. The defences round |
||