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