Viva Lewes Issue #138 March 2018

PUBS AND BOBS
TOWN PLAQUE #36: TOM PAINE
Uniquely featuring on three plaques in the town centre, Tom Paine has been
called ‘a rope-maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist
by inclination’. He came to Lewes in 1768 as a Customs and Excise Officer
to keep an eye on local smugglers, but he only lived here, at Bull House at
Westgate, for less than seven years. In that time he threw himself into the
town’s life: he fought for better employment conditions for Customs Officers,
married and separated, launched a business that failed, went broke, then
sold all that he had and moved out to America early in 1784. He arrived
in Philadelphia too unwell to leave the ship: an unpromising start - but his radical republican pamphlets,
especially Common Sense (1776), which crystallized sentiment for independence, are now seen as crucial in
encouraging separation from Britain and the birth of a new nation. (One plaque is on Bull House, one on the
White Hart, where he debated, and this is in the Castle Precincts, near the Maltings.) Marcus Taylor
LEWES IN NUMBERS
Where do people work and how do they get there? The last Census asked workers resident in Lewes, and
found that 1 in 4 worked at or from home, or overseas or offshore. 39% work within 10 kilometres of home,
which includes Lewes and Falmer. A further 23% work between 10-30 km of Lewes, including Brighton,
Eastbourne, Worthing and Haywards Heath, while 13% travel over 30 km including Crawley, London and
beyond. More men than women work from home, although women are more likely to work closer to home
overall. 25% travel to work by foot or cycle, around double the local or regional percentage, while a further
20% travel by public transport. 44% travel by private car or van, much lower than the 66% across the county
and the region. Sarah Boughton
GHOST PUB #41: THE PRINCE OF WALES, MALLING STREET
The present Malling Hill road was constructed around 1830, and the
Prince of Wales was almost certainly built around the same time. This became
the first Lewes pub on the route into the town from the north-east,
and as such would have experienced a fair amount of trade. For almost the
entire period between the 1870s and 1970s, the Prince of Wales was run
by just three families: the Eastwoods, the Bournes, and the Lampers. Albert
Eastwood took over the pub in 1876, and appears to have been quite
a character, hosting events and dinners for many clubs and societies. He
had his own ‘spacious marquee’ at the annual Great Sheep Fair in town,
where he sold luncheons, wines, spirits and cigars. And in 1892 Lewesians
were invited to the Prince of Wales to see a display of Albert’s ‘unusually heavy’ potatoes. Robert Bourne and
his wife Frances (a Ringmer girl) took over the pub in 1897, and remained there for 34 years. It was then
handed over to Stephen and Edith Lamper, who passed it to their son John in 1960. Both Stephen and John
played for the Prince of Wales in the Lewes Darts League. Sadly, this lovely old pub closed in the 1990s. It
did open again briefly, but did not last long. The building is now home to a firm of solicitors. Mat Homewood
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