107-591: Greene King is a British pub and brewing company founded in 1799, currently based in Bury St Edmunds , Suffolk . The company also owns brands including Hungry Horse and Farmhouse Inns, as well as other pubs, restaurants and hotels. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), until it was acquired by CK Assets in October 2019. Its best known beers are Greene King IPA and Abbot Ale,
214-531: A great fire broke out in Eastgate Street, which resulted in 160 dwellings and 400 outhouses being destroyed. The town developed into a flourishing cloth-making town, with a large woollen trade, by the 14th century. In 1405 Henry IV granted another fair. Elizabeth I in 1562 confirmed the charters which former kings had granted to the abbots. The reversion of the fairs and two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I in fee farm to
321-686: A 16th-century timber-framed Wealden hall house known as Anne of Cleves House . Other notable features of the area include the Glyndebourne festival, the Lewes Bonfire celebrations and the Lewes Pound . The place-name "Lewes" is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter circa 961 AD, where it appears as Læwe . It appears as Lewes in the Domesday Book of 1086. The addition of the <-s> suffix seems to have been part of
428-522: A broader trend of Anglo-Norman scribes pluralising Anglo-Saxon place-names (a famous example being their rendering of Lunden as Londres , hence the modern French name for London ). The traditional derivation of Læwe , first posited by the Tudor antiquarian Laurence Nowell , derives it from the Old English word hlæw , meaning "hill" or " barrow ", presumably referring to School Hill (on which
535-590: A gap in the South Downs , cut through by the River Ouse , and near its confluence with the Winterbourne Stream. It is approximately seven miles north of Newhaven , and an equal distance north-east of Brighton . The South Downs rise above the river on both banks. The High Street, and earliest settlement, occupies the west bank, climbing steeply up from the bridge taking its ancient route along
642-711: A major port. During the Crimean War , some 300 Finns who had served in the Russian army during the Åland War and been captured at Bomarsund were imprisoned in the naval prison at Lewes. Lewes became a borough in 1881. Lewes Town Hall opened in 1893 in premises converted from the former Star Inn and in 1913 Council Offices were added in Arts-and-Crafts style. Lewes Victoria Hospital opened in 1909 in its current premises, as Victoria Hospital and Infirmary, having previously been on School Hill where it opened as
749-904: A petition aimed at preventing Greene King from changing the name of "The Black Bitch" pub to "The Black Hound". The term "black bitches" is traditionally used for natives of the town, and an image of a black bitch (a female dog) appears on the town's coat of arms . Greene King argued that the name "The Black Bitch" had "racist and offensive connotations". On 27 January 2024, the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis announced plans to seek slavery reparations from Greene King, due to its founder Benjamin Greene's historical ownership of 231 enslaved people in St Kitts. Talks have been scheduled between St Kitts and Nevis officials and Greene King. In March 2016, Greene King won Best Managed Pub Company (51+ sites) at
856-469: A pitched battle on the hills above the town (roughly in the area of modern Landport Bottom). The king's son Prince Edward , commanding the right wing of the royal army, succeeded in driving off some of the baronial forces, but he got carried away with the pursuit, which took him as far as Offham . In Edward's absence the remainder of the royal army was attacked by de Montfort and Gilbert de Clare and decisively defeated. The king's brother Richard of Cornwall
963-478: Is St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds , where Mary Tudor, Queen of France and sister of Tudor king Henry VIII , was re-buried, six years after her death, having been moved from the abbey after her brother's Dissolution of the Monasteries . Queen Victoria had a stained glass window fitted into the church to commemorate Mary's interment. Moreton Hall , a Grade II*listed building by Robert Adam , houses
1070-611: Is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk , England. The town is best known for Bury St Edmunds Abbey and St Edmundsbury Cathedral . Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich of the Church of England , with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral . In 2011, it had a population of 45,000. The town, originally called Beodericsworth,
1177-462: Is a site of biological interest, an isolated area of the South Downs. Lewes Brooks, also of biological importance, is part of the floodplain of the River Ouse , providing a habitat for many invertebrates such as water beetles and snails. Southerham Works Pit is of geological interest, a disused chalk pit displaying a wide variety of fossilised fish remains. The Railway Land nature reserve
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#17327919188441284-422: Is a visitor centre next to the brewery, and tours are run regularly throughout the week. The brewery has an exhibition of pub sign artwork by George Taylor , who designed over 250 such signs for Greene King pubs. Greene King has been supporting apprenticeships since 2011 through its Greene King Apprenticeship Programme. Since launch, the scheme has processed some 9,000 apprentices. In 2016, Greene King launched
1391-588: Is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is " Cfb " (Marine West Coast Climate/ Oceanic climate ). The Roman Catholic church is dedicated to St. Pancras in memory of the Priory and is a red-brick building over the street from St Anne's. In 2001 the service industries were by far the biggest employers in Lewes: over 60% of the population working in that sector. A little over 10% are employed in manufacturing, mostly in
1498-797: Is also home to the Chapel of the Suffolk and Royal Anglian Regiments . The town has other Anglican churches: St Edmund's Catholic Church , located in Westgate Street, is the Roman Catholic parish church of Bury St Edmunds. Founded by the Jesuits in 1763, the present church building is grade II listed . It was built in 1837. It is administered by the Diocese of East Anglia in its Bury St Edmunds deanery. Bury St Edmunds has several former church and chapel buildings: The Theatre Royal
1605-504: Is due in 2027. Since 2010, the town has been included within the South Downs National Park . The National Park Authority has therefore taken over some functions from the local councils, notably relating to town planning . There are also a number of local political groups without council representation. The far-left group Lewes Maoist Action has operated in the town since 2013, frequently handing out leaflets at
1712-656: Is equal to £1. Like the similar local currency in Totnes , the initiative is part of the Transition Towns movement. The Lewes Pound and the Transition Towns movement have received criticism for a failure to address the needs of the wider Lewes population, especially lower socio-economic groups. Such local currency initiatives have been more widely criticised in light of limited success stimulating new spending in local economies and as an unrealistic strategy to reduce carbon emissions. The Lewes Pound can be exchanged for
1819-543: Is generally low, at under 600 mm (24 in), and spread fairly evenly throughout the year. The town has a Christian heritage dating back to the foundation of the abbey in 1020. Today there are many active churches in the town. In the centre of Bury St Edmunds lie the remains of an abbey , surrounded by the abbey gardens. The abbey is a shrine to Saint Edmund , the Saxon King of the East Angles . The abbey
1926-636: Is located in the middle of an undulating area of East Anglia known as the East Anglian Heights, with land to the east and west of the town rising to above 100 metres (330 ft), though parts of the town itself are as low as 30 m (100 ft) above sea level where the Rivers Lark and Linnet pass through it. There are two Met Office reporting stations in the vicinity of Bury St Edmunds, Brooms Barn (elevation 76 m or 249 ft), 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (10 kilometres) west of
2033-675: Is no shortage in the Lewes area). This unusual word was borrowed into Old English from Old Welsh , the Modern Welsh spelling being llechwedd . The immense strategic value of the site, which is able to command traffic between the Channel coast and the Sussex interior, was recognised as early as the Iron Age , when a hill-fort was built on Mount Caburn , the steep-sided hill that overlooks
2140-623: Is on the east side of the town next to the Ouse, and contains an area of woodland and marshes, which now includes the Heart of Reeds, a sculpted reed bed designed by local land artist Chris Drury . The Winterbourne stream, a tributary of the Ouse, flows through it. This stream flows most winters and dries up in the summer, hence its name. It continues through Lewes going through the Grange Gardens and often travelling underground. The Heart of Reeds
2247-541: Is one of the sites in East Sussex and Kent home to the marsh frog , an introduced species. It is popular with pond-dippers and walkers. A centre for the study of environmental change is due to be built at the entrance to the nature reserve. On 21 August 1864, Lewes experienced an earthquake measuring 3.1 on the Richter magnitude scale . Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there
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#17327919188442354-555: Is provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia . Television signals are received from the Tacolneston TV transmitter and the local relay transmitter. The town's local radio stations are BBC Radio Suffolk on 104.6 FM, Heart East on 96.4 FM and RWSfm on 103.3 FM, a community radio station that broadcast from the town. The local newspapers are the East Anglian Daily Times and Bury Free Press . Many pubs in
2461-471: Is the administrative centre of the wider district of the same name . It lies on the River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the South Downs . A traditional market town and centre of communications, in 1264 it was the site of the Battle of Lewes . The town's landmarks include Lewes Castle , Lewes Priory , Bull House (the former home of Thomas Paine ), Southover Grange and public gardens, and
2568-518: Is the civic church of Bury St Edmunds and the third largest parish church in England. It was part of the abbey complex and originally was one of three large churches in the town (the others being St James, now St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and St Margaret's, now gone). It is renowned for its magnificent hammer-beam "angel" roof, and is the final resting place of Mary Tudor, Queen of France , Duchess of Suffolk and favourite sister of Henry VIII . St Mary's
2675-650: Is the smaller Old Cannon Brewery . Just outside the town, on the site of RAF Bury St Edmunds , is Bartrums Brewery, originally based in Thurston , and to the north is the Brewshed brewery, located in Ingham. The Greene King pub The Nutshell is situated in the centre of the town, and is one of several that claim to be Britain's smallest public house . Bury's largest landmark is the British Sugar factory near
2782-664: The A14 , which processes sugar beet into refined crystal sugar. It was built in 1925 when the town's MP, Walter Guinness , was Minister of Agriculture , and for many of its early years was managed by Martin Neumann, former manager of a sugar beet refinery in Šurany , then part of Czechoslovakia . Neumann was invited by the British government to oversee the refinement of sugar in Bury St Edmunds and, with his family, immigrated to
2889-824: The FT that CK Assets has a track record of buying such assets in the UK and he does not expect it to sell Greene King later as a bet on the falling pound. The takeover was approved by the High Court in October 2019. The Greene King brewery in Bury St Edmunds produces beers branded in the names of breweries now closed, including Morland (Old Speckled Hen), Ruddles , Hardys & Hanson Kimberley Ale and Tolly Cobbold . The Belhaven Brewery in Dunbar continues to operate in Scotland. The group operates 3,100 pubs, restaurants and hotels: There
2996-788: The Kingdom of Wessex , and in 838 Ecgberht, King of Wessex donated the estate of Malling, on the opposite side of the Ouse from Lewes, to the Archbishop of Canterbury . As a result, the Parish of Malling became a ' peculiar ', which means that the parish was directly subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than the Bishop of Chichester like every other parish in Sussex. Malling would retain this anomalous status until as late as 1845. Information about Lewes becomes much more plentiful from
3103-598: The Loch Fyne fish restaurant chain (2007), Cloverleaf (2011), Realpubs (2011), the Capital Pub Company (2011) and the Spirit Pub Company (2015). The Spirit acquisition, where Greene King bought Spirit for £773.6m, took the total number of Greene King sites to 3,116, brought 14 brands together and made Greene King the largest managed pub company in the UK. It was completed on 23 June 2015. It
3210-706: The Proto-Indo-European root * bhrgh 'fortified elevation', with cognates including Welsh bera 'stack' and Sanskrit bhrant - 'high, elevated building'. The second section of the name refers to Edmund , King of the East Angles , called Edmund the Martyr, who was killed by the Vikings in the year 869. He became venerated as a saint and a martyr, and his shrine made Bury St Edmunds an important place of pilgrimage. The formal name of
3317-529: The Rape of Lewes passed to his sororal nephew Richard Fitzalan, 4th Earl of Arundel . Fitzalan preferred to reside at Arundel Castle rather than at Lewes, and the town therefore lost the prestige and economic advantages associated with being the seat of an important magnate. This was only the beginning of a series of misfortunes that struck Lewes, for in 1348 the Black Death arrived in England and later on in
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3424-574: The Second World War , the USAAF used Rougham Airfield outside the town. On 3 March 1974 a Turkish Airlines DC10 jet Flight 981 crashed near Paris killing all 346 people on board. Among the victims were 17 members of Bury St Edmunds Rugby Football Club , returning from France. Near the abbey gardens stands Britain's first internally illuminated street sign, the Pillar of Salt , which
3531-465: The abbey . The town is associated with Magna Carta . In 1214 the barons of England are believed to have met in the abbey church and sworn to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties , the document which influenced the creation of Magna Carta, a copy of which was displayed in the town's cathedral during the 2014 celebrations. By various grants from the abbots, the town gradually attained
3638-514: The last earl , namely John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk , Edward Neville, 3rd Baron Bergavenny , and Edmund Lenthall. As a result of this dismemberment the district became even more neglected by its lords, although feudal politics was starting to become less important anyway due to the centralising reforms of the Yorkist and Tudor kings. The English Reformation was begun by one of these Tudor monarchs, Henry VIII , and as part of this process
3745-522: The monasteries of England were dissolved ; Lewes Priory was consequently demolished in 1538 and its property seized by the Crown. Henry's daughter Mary I reversed the religious policy of England, and during the resulting Marian Persecutions of 1555–1557, Lewes was the site of the execution of seventeen Protestant martyrs , most of them actually from the Weald rather than Lewes itself, who were burned at
3852-465: The twin town of Blois attend, vending on Cliffe Bridge. From 1794 beers, wines and spirits were distributed from Lewes under the Harveys name, and the town is today the site of Harvey & Son 's brewery celebrated as one of the finest ale producers in England. In September 2008, Lewes launched its own currency, the Lewes Pound , in an effort to increase trade within the town. One Lewes Pound
3959-490: The 1970s. Suffolk County Cricket Club play occasional games at the Victory Ground, which is also the home ground of Bury St Edmunds Cricket Club . The cricket club previously played at Cemetry Road . Bury St Edmunds Rugby Football Club has an extensive history, including the devastating plane crash that killed several members who had attended a 1974 Five Nations Championship match. Eastgate Amateur Boxing club
4066-530: The 2016 Publican Awards. Greene King's chief executive, Rooney Anand, also won Business of the Year Award at the Publican Awards 2016. In March 2017, Greene King Pub Partners won Best Tenanted & Leased Pub Company (201+ sites) at the 2017 Publican Awards. Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds ( / ˈ b ɛr i s ə n t ˈ ɛ d m ən d z / ), commonly referred to locally as Bury,
4173-647: The Confessor made the abbot lord of the franchise. The older monastery was destroyed and, the secular priests having been expelled, a new Benedictine abbey was built. Count Alan Rufus is said to have been interred at Bury St Edmunds Abbey in 1093. In the 12th and 13th centuries the head of the de Hastings family, who held the Lordship of the Manor of Ashill in Norfolk, was hereditary Steward of this abbey. The town
4280-641: The Get into Hospitality Programme in partnership with The Prince's Trust. The aim of the programme is to address the skills and experience gaps that prevent unemployed people from getting into work. Those who successfully complete and graduate from the programme are offered a role onto the Greene King Apprenticeship Programme. In 2017, Greene King launched the Craft Academy, an 18-month brewing venture led by apprentices. Through
4387-569: The Great British Pub Awards in 2012, closed after the landlord was forced out in an argument over rent. Having lost 40% of their trade after the BBC moved to Salford , the landlord had won a rent reduction at an independent tribunal before being forced out by the brewery. Greene King has also been criticised for removing many traditional and historic pub signs as part of rebranding schemes. In 2021, residents of Linlithgow launched
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4494-530: The Lewes Dispensary and Infirmary in 1855. In October 2000, the town suffered major flooding during an intense period of severe weather throughout the United Kingdom. The commercial centre of the town and many residential areas were devastated. In a government report into the nationwide flooding, Lewes was officially noted the most severely affected location. As a result of the devastation,
4601-424: The Lewes Flood Action group formed, to press for better flood protection measures. There are three tiers of local government covering Lewes, at parish (town), district and county level: Lewes Town Council, Lewes District Council and East Sussex County Council . The town council is based at Lewes Town Hall on the High Street. The county council has its headquarters at County Hall on St Anne's Crescent in
4708-402: The Ouse (and the modern town of Lewes) from the east. During the Roman period, there was an aristocratic villa at Beddingham , at the foot of Mount Caburn, and there have been several finds of Roman coins and pottery sherds in Lewes itself. The Victorian historian Thomas Walker Horsfield therefore reckoned that there must have been a Roman settlement on the site, and he identified it with
4815-415: The Ouse valley from the coast to the Surrey boundary. De Warenne constructed Lewes Castle within the walls of the Saxon burh , while his wife Gundreda founded the Priory of St Pancras , a Cluniac monastic house, in about 1081. During the Second Barons' War , King Henry III was ambushed at Lewes by a force of rebel barons led by Simon de Montfort . Henry marched out to fight de Montfort, leading to
4922-493: The Phoenix Bridge and through the Cuilfail Tunnel to join the A27. The town boundaries were enlarged twice (from the original town walls), in 1881 and 1934. They now include the more modern housing estates of Wallands, South Malling (the west part of which is a previously separate village with a church dedicated to St Michael), Nevill, Lansdown and Cranedown on the Kingston Road. Countryside walks can be taken starting from several points in Lewes. One can walk on Mount Caburn to
5029-417: The United Kingdom. The actor and writer Stephen Fry is a grandson of Martin Neumann, as recounted in the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? The refinery processes beet from 1,300 growers. 660 lorry-loads of beet can be accepted each day when beet is being harvested. Not all the beet can be crystallised immediately, and some is kept in solution in holding tanks until late spring and early summer, when
5136-448: The business and in 1887 it merged with Frederick William King's brewing business to create Greene King. Greene King has grown via mergers and acquisitions, including Rayments Brewery (1961), the Magic Pub Company (1996), Hungry Horse (1996), Morland Brewery (1999), Old English Inns (2001), Morrells (2002), a large part of the Laurel Pub Company (2004), Ridley's Brewery (2005), Belhaven Brewery (2005), Hardys and Hansons (2006),
5243-437: The cathedral. The town now has seven Anglican churches in six parishes, St Peter's being in the same parish as St Mary's. St James' parish church became St Edmundsbury Cathedral when the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was formed in 1914. The cathedral was extended with an eastern end in the 1960s. A new Gothic revival cathedral tower was built as part of a Millennium project running from 2000 to 2005. The opening for
5350-404: The century the Hundred Years War led to a series of French and Castilian raids on Sussex, which badly disrupted trade. On one occasion in 1377 the Prior of St Pancras , John de Charlieu, was abducted by the raiders and held to ransom. Furthermore, after the main branch of the Fitzalan family died out in 1439, the Rape of Lewes was subsequently partitioned between the three sororal nephews of
5457-432: The corporation. James I in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in Easter week and a market. James granted further charters in 1608 and 1614, as did Charles II in 1668 and 1684. Parliaments were held in the borough in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I conferred on it the privilege of sending two members. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 reduced
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#17327919188445564-532: The diocese is "St Edmundsbury", and the town is colloquially known as Bury. An archaeological study in the 2010s on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds ( Beodericsworth , Bedrichesworth , St Edmund's Bury ) uncovered evidence of Bronze Age activity in the area. The dig also uncovered Roman coins from the first and second centuries. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1848, notes the earlier discovery of Roman antiquities, and as with several other writers connects Bury St Edmunds with Villa Faustini or Villa Faustina , although
5671-424: The election was held. By 2013 a number of by-elections put Conservatives in control again and in the 2015 election Conservatives won 14 of the 17 vacancies. In 2020 it was announced that the town council would meet in the Guildhall, the historic home of the borough council between 1606 and 1966. Lewes Lewes ( / ˈ l uː ɪ s / ) is the county town of East Sussex , England. The town
5778-510: The first in the UK, was started in the 1990s by Common Cause Co-operative Ltd and is a popular re-invention of Lewes as a market town. The Farmers' Market takes place in pedestrianised Cliffe High Street on the first and third Saturdays of every month, with local food producers coming to sell their wares under covered market stalls. A weekly food market in the Lewes Market Tower was established in July 2010 by Transition Town Lewes to allow traders to sell local produce. Occasionally French traders from
5885-404: The governance section, the town is also where three tiers of local government have their headquarters, and the head office of Sussex Police is also in Lewes. The town's most important annual event is the Lewes Bonfire celebrations on 5 November, Guy Fawkes Night . In Lewes this event not only marks the date of the uncovering of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, but also commemorates the memory of
5992-401: The grounds that everything in the town... belonged by right to St Edmund: therefore, either the Jews should be St Edmund's men or they should be banished from the town." This expulsion predates the Edict of Expulsion by 100 years. In 1198, a fire burned the shrine of St Edmund, leading to the inspection of his corpse by Abbot Samson and the translation of St Edmund's body to a new location in
6099-410: The historic centre of Lewes stands) or to one of the five ancient burial mounds, all now levelled, in the vicinity of St John sub Castro . However, this etymology has been challenged by the Swedish philologist Rune Forsberg on the grounds that the loss of the initial ⟨h⟩ in hlæw would be unlikely phonologically in this context. He suggested that the name Læwe instead derives from
6206-425: The home town of the London and South East Regional Divorce Unit and the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre (for issues with maintenance payments outside Greater London). The former processes divorce documents from across London and South East England as one of five centralised units covering the United Kingdom. Both units are based with Bury St Edmunds County Court in Triton House, St Andrews Street North. Bury
6313-496: The infamous 1827 Red Barn murder . The Market Cross , today a community space, is a building restored by Robert Adam in 1780s. Between 1972 and 2018 the Market Cross was an art gallery called "Smiths Row", hosting a programme of changing contemporary art and craft exhibitions and events by British and international artists. The town holds several festivals a year. The largest festival is held in May and includes concerts, plays, dance, and lecturers culminating in fireworks. There
6420-408: The location of this Roman site is also discussed by E. Gillingwater (1804), who notes the lack of evidence for it being here. The town was one of the royal boroughs of the Saxons . Sigebert , king of the East Angles , founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund the Martyr, who was slain by the Danes in 869, and owed most of its early celebrity to
6527-479: The now-closed Moreton Hall Preparatory School. Bury St Edmunds Guildhall dates back to the late 12th century. Bury St Edmunds has one of the full-time fire stations run by Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service . Originally located in the Traverse (now the Halifax bank), it moved to Fornham Road in 1953. The Fornham Road site (now Mermaid Close) closed in 1987 and the fire station moved to its current location on Parkway North. Since March 2015, Bury St Edmunds has been
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#17327919188446634-460: The otherwise unlocatable town of Mutuantonis . Another antiquarian, John Elliot, even suggested that central Lewes's distinctive network of twittens was based on the layout of a Roman legionary fortress ; however modern historians are rather more cautious about the possibility of a Roman Lewes, as there is as yet no archaeological evidence for a built-up area dating back to the Roman period. The earliest phase of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Sussex
6741-427: The plant has spare crystallising capacity. The sugar is sold under the Silver Spoon name (the other major British brand, Tate & Lyle , is made from imported sugar cane ). By-products include molassed sugar beet feed for cattle and LimeX70, a soil improver. The factory has its own power station, which powers around 110,000 homes. A smell of burnt starch from the plant is noticeable on some days. The town council
6848-411: The principal market towns of Sussex, as well as an important port, and by the end of the Georgian era it also had well-developed textiles, iron, brewing, and shipbuilding industries. The severe winter of 1836–7 led to a large build-up of snow on Cliffe Hill, whose sheer western face directly overlooks the town. On Tuesday 27 December 1836 this snow cornice collapsed, and the resulting Lewes avalanche
6955-495: The programme, apprentices earn while they learn about brewing, design and marketing. Through the scheme, they will gain a Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Sales. The first five beers from the Craft Academy were launched at Craft Beer Rising Festival in London and include; Over Easy (3.8% session IPA), Big Bang IPA (5.6% bold and citrusy IPA), Bitter Sweet (6% black IPA), Desert Ryeder (4.8% rye beer) and High & Dry (5% dry hop lager). Greene King's ongoing business expansion has sometimes been
7062-477: The puritan theologian Richard Sibbes , master of St Catherine's Hall in Cambridge , antiquary and politician Simonds d'Ewes , and John Winthrop the Younger , who became governor of Connecticut. The town was the setting for witch trials between 1599 and 1694. The population had reached 12,538 by 1841. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of the Militia Barracks in 1857 and of Gibraltar Barracks in 1878. During
7169-399: The rank of a borough . Henry III in 1235 granted to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December and the other the great St Matthew 's fair, which was abolished by the Fairs Act of 1871 . In 1327, the Great Riot occurred, in which the local populace led an armed revolt against the abbey. The riot destroyed the main gate, and a new, fortified gate was built in its stead. On 11 April 1608
7276-468: The rare Old English word lǣw ("wound, incision"), and reflects the fact that from the top of School Hill Lewes overlooks the narrow, steep-sided "gash" where the River Ouse cuts through the line of the South Downs. This theory was endorsed in 2011 by A Dictionary of British Place Names . A third possibility has been advanced by Richard Coates , who has argued that Læwe derives from lexowia , an Old English word meaning "hillside, slope" (of which there
7383-420: The reign of Alfred the Great onward, as it was one of the towns which he fortified as part of the network of burhs he established in response to the Viking raids . The peace and stability brought by Alfred and his successors evidently stimulated economic activity in the area, for in the late Anglo-Saxon period Lewes seems to have been a thriving boom town – during the reign of Alfred's grandson Æthelstan it
7490-442: The representation to one. The borough of Bury St Edmunds and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia , being part of the Eastern Association , supported Puritan sentiment during the first half of the 17th century. By 1640, several families had departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration . Bury's ancient grammar school also educated such notables as
7597-458: The reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king. The town grew around Bury St Edmunds Abbey , a site of pilgrimage . By 925 the fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, and the name of the town was changed to St Edmund's Bury . In 942 or 945, King Edmund I had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Later, Edward
7704-483: The ridge; the summit on that side, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) distant is known as Mount Harry. On the east bank there is a large chalk cliff , Cliffe Hill that can be seen for many miles, part of the group of hills including Mount Caburn , Malling Down (where there are a few houses in a wooded area on the hillside, in a development known as Cuilfail) and Golf Hill (home to the Lewes Golf Club). The two banks of
7811-594: The river and contains a number of light industrial and creative industry uses, as well as car parks and a fire station. A potential regeneration project (formerly "The North Street Quarter", renamed "The Phoenix Project" by the Lewes-based eco-development company Human Nature which took on ownership of the land in December 2020) for the area would be the largest in Lewes since the South Malling residential area
7918-504: The river are joined by Willey's Bridge (a footbridge), the Phoenix Causeway (a recent concrete road bridge, named after the old Phoenix Ironworks) and Cliffe Bridge (an 18th-century replacement of the mediaeval crossing, widened in the 1930s and now semi-pedestrianised). The High Street runs from Eastgate to West-Out, forming the spine of the ancient town. Cliffe Hill gives its name to the one-time village of Cliffe, now part of
8025-537: The seat for 18 years until defeated in 2015 by Conservative Maria Caulfield , who retained her seat in the 2017 and 2019 general elections. As of July 2024, Liberal Democrat James MacCleary is the MP. You can see Lewes lying like a box of toys under a great amphitheatre of chalk hills ... on the whole it is set down better than any town I have seen in England. Lewes is situated on the Greenwich or Prime Meridian , in
8132-757: The seventeen Lewes Martyrs , Protestants burnt at the stake for their faith during the Marian Persecutions . The celebrations, which controversially involve burning an effigy of Pope Paul V , who was pope during the Gunpowder Plot, are the largest and most famous Bonfire Night celebrations in the country. The Lewes Chamber of Commerce represents the traders and businesses of the town. The town has been identified as unusually diversified with numerous specialist, independent retailers, counter to national trends toward 'chain' retailers and large corporate retail outlets. Lewes Farmers' Market, one of
8239-482: The smaller industrial units. The town is a net daytime exporter of employees with a significant community working in London and Brighton whilst it draws in employees of the numerous local government and public service functions on which its local economy is strongly dependent. An important part of the town's economy is based on tourism, because of the town's many historic attractions and its location. As referenced in
8346-569: The stake in front of the Star Inn (now the site of Lewes Town Hall ). Commemoration of the martyrs is one of the main purposes of Lewes Bonfire , and a stone memorial to the martyrs was unveiled on Cliffe Hill in 1901. Lewesian politics was dominated by a strongly Puritan faction in the reign of Charles I , and during the English Civil War it was one of the most important Parliamentarian strongholds in Sussex. As such it became
8453-655: The subject of criticism. As a result of its active acquisition policy, it has come to be known by beer protesters as "Greedy King". The growing consumer reaction to Greene King buying out smaller breweries was demonstrated towards the end of 2006 when a pub in Lewes , East Sussex started a well-publicised protest against Greene King for removing the locally produced Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter from sale, while continuing to sell other guest beers. In January 2014, popular Manchester pub The Lass O'Gowrie, voted "Best Pub in Britain" at
8560-457: The target of a royalist attack in December 1642, but the royalist army was intercepted and defeated at the Battle of Muster Green by Parliamentarian forces commanded by Herbert Morley , one of the two Members of Parliament (MPs) for Lewes. Lewes recovered relatively quickly after the Civil War, and prospered during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It had always been one of
8667-503: The third and fifth highest selling cask ales in Britain. The brewery was founded by Benjamin Greene in Bury St. Edmunds in 1799. In Richard Wilson's biographical analysis of the Greene family, he credits various family members for being able to achieve distinction in the worlds of business and banking, literature ( Graham Greene , for example) and broadcasting in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.' In 1836 Edward Greene took over
8774-450: The tower took place in July 2005, and included a brass band concert and fireworks. Parts of the cathedral remain uncompleted, including the cloisters . The tower makes St Edmundsbury the most recently completed Anglican cathedral in the UK, and was constructed using original fabrication techniques by six masons who placed the machine-cut stones individually as they arrived. St Mary's Church
8881-513: The town centre, and Honington (elevation 51 m or 167 ft), about 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 mi (10 km) north. According to Usman Majeed, head of Honington, the latter ceased weather observations in 2003, while Brooms Barn remains operational. Brooms Barn's record maximum temperature stands at 36.7 °C (98.1 °F), recorded in August 2003. The lowest recent temperature was −10.0 °C (14.0 °F) during December 2010. Rainfall
8988-414: The town hall, including a new frontage to High Street, which was completed in 1893. The municipal borough of Lewes was abolished in 1974 when the larger Lewes District was established. A successor parish was created covering the area of the former borough, with the parish council taking the name Lewes Town Council. Following the 2023 election the composition of the town council was: The next election
9095-555: The town have closed over the years, but the town still has a variety of pubs The Angel Hotel is a Georgian building on Angel Hill. Charles Dickens stayed there while giving readings in the Athenaeum , as mentioned in The Pickwick Papers . Angelina Jolie stayed there while filming Tomb Raider . A coaching inn has existed on the site since the 15th century. Greene King , is situated in Bury St Edmunds, as
9202-471: The town was made a municipal borough . The town was then run by a corporate body formally called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Lewes", informally known as the corporation or town council. The last constable became the first mayor. In 1890, the town council acquired the former Star Inn at 189 High Street, parts of which date back to the fourteenth century, and the adjoining corn exchange. The buildings were converted and extended to become
9309-419: The town's administration were recognised in 1806 when separate improvement commissioners were established to pave, light and repair the streets and provide a watch . When local government in towns was reformed across the country in the 1830s, Lewes was one of the boroughs left unreformed , and so it continued to be run by its jury and improvement commissioners. The situation was finally regularised in 1881 when
9416-541: The town, which is also used by Lewes District Council as its meeting place. Lewes was an ancient borough , although the structure of its early government is obscure. For much of the Middle Ages the town was run by a closed aristocratic organisation known as the "Fellowship of the Twelve", which was gradually eclipsed by a body known as the jury in the seventeenth century, presided over by a constable. The limitations of
9523-598: The town. A new route reaching the town at the Railway Land – the Egrets Way – initially conceived in 2011 by the Ouse Valley Cycle Network, has been designed as a network of walking and cycling paths linking Lewes and Newhaven with the villages in between. Three Sites of Special Scientific Interest lie within the parish: Lewes Downs , Lewes Brooks and Southerham Works Pit . Lewes Downs
9630-526: The town. The southern part of the town, Southover, came into being as a village adjacent to the Priory, south of the Winterbourne Stream. At the north of the town's original wall boundary is the St John's or Pells area, home to several 19th-century streets and the Pells Pond. The Pells Pool , built in 1860, is the oldest freshwater lido in England. The Phoenix Industrial Estate lies along the west bank of
9737-492: The train station and running a cake stall at weekends outside Lewes Castle . In 2020, the group claims to have infiltrated the council and Harvey's brewery, although they have never contested a local or parliamentary election. Lewes gives its name to the Lewes parliamentary constituency . The constituency was held by the Conservatives from the 1870s until 1997, when it was won by Liberal Democrat Norman Baker . He held
9844-585: The village of Glynde starting in Cliffe, traverse the Lewes Brooks (an RSPB reserve) from Southover, walk to Kingston near Lewes also from Southover, head up Landport Bottom to Mount Harry and Black Cap along the edge of the old Lewes Racecourse, or wander up along the Ouse to Hamsey Place from the Pells. The South Downs Way crosses the Ouse just south of Lewes at Southease and hikers often stop off at
9951-676: Was an annual Christmas Fair in the town up until 2019, with food, drink, local crafts and fairground rides available, stretching from the Abbey Gardens to the Arc Shopping Centre. Bury St Edmunds is home to England's oldest Scout group, 1st Bury St Edmunds (Mayors Own) . The town's main football club, Bury Town , is the fourth oldest non-league team in England. They are members of the Isthmian League and have played at Ram Meadow since moving from Kings Road in
10058-620: Was announced in November 2018 that Rooney Anand would be stepping down from his role as CEO after 14 years in the position. In 2019 the Hong Kong based CK Assets announced the proposed take over of Greene King, which shareholders had to approve. According to the Financial Times , the holding company took the view that the pubs owned by Greene King are an asset that is safe from potential recession. Analyst David Blennerhassett told
10165-535: Was assigned two royal moneyers , more than any other mint in Sussex, and according to Domesday Book it generated £26 of revenue for the Crown in 1065, almost twice the amount of any other town in the county. After the Norman Conquest , William the Conqueror rewarded his retainer William de Warenne by making him Earl of Surrey and granting him the Rape of Lewes , a strip of land stretching along
10272-661: Was built by National Gallery architect William Wilkins in 1819 and is the sole surviving Regency Theatre in the country. The theatre, owned by the Greene King brewery, is leased to the National Trust for a nominal charge, and underwent restoration between 2005 and 2007. It presents a full programme of performances and is also open for public tours. In August 2023, the Theatre Royal closed suddenly due to fire safety issues. An additional arts venue, The Apex,
10379-608: Was built in 1935. The sign is at the terminus of the A1101 , Great Britain's lowest road which is mostly below sea level. There is a network of tunnels which are evidence of chalk -workings, though there is no evidence of extensive tunnels under the town centre. Some buildings have inter-communicating cellars. Due to their unsafe nature the chalk-workings are not open to the public, although viewing has been granted to individuals. Some have caused subsidence within living memory, for instance at Jacqueline Close. Among noteworthy buildings
10486-668: Was built on a grid pattern by Abbot Baldwin around 1080. It is known for brewing and malting ( Greene King brewery) and for a British Sugar processing factory, where Silver Spoon sugar is produced. The town is the cultural and retail centre for West Suffolk and tourism is a major part of the economy. The name Bury is etymologically connected with borough , which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as German Burg 'fortress, castle' and Bereich '(defined) area' Old Norse borg 'wall, castle'; and Gothic baurg 'city'. They all derive from Proto-Germanic * burgs 'fortress'. This in turn derives from
10593-461: Was built on the site of the former cattle market in 2010. Moyse's Hall Museum is one of the oldest (c. 1180) domestic buildings in East Anglia open to the public. It has collections of fine art, for example Mary Beale , costume, e.g. Charles Frederick Worth , horology , local and social history, including Witchcraft . It holds an original death mask of William Corder who was hanged for
10700-518: Was captured, and the king himself was forced to sign the Mise of Lewes , a document which does not survive but was probably aimed at forcing Henry to uphold the Provisions of Oxford . Despite this uncertainty about its consequences, the battle is often seen as an important milestone in the development of English democracy. The de Warenne family died out with Earl John in 1347, whereupon lordship of
10807-554: Was concentrated between the Rivers Ouse and Cuckmere , and Anglo-Saxon finds begin to appear in Lewes from the sixth century. The town of Lewes was probably founded around this time, and it may have been one of the most important settlements in the Kingdom of Sussex , along with Chichester and Hastings , though the evidence for this early period is very sketchy. By the ninth century, the Kingdom of Sussex had been annexed to
10914-400: Was developed in the 1950s and 1960s and in the South Downs since it became a National Park. Malling lies to the east of the river and had 18th- and 19th-century houses and two notable breweries. Road engineering and local planning policy in the 1970s cleared many older buildings here to allow the flow of traffic; the main road route east from the town now goes along Little East Street, across
11021-561: Was established in 1981. The club has been headquartered at various locations in and around the town, but are now training in an old World War I gym in Rougham. West Suffolk Swimming Club formed in 1998 from the merger of two local swimming clubs and operates from pools in Bury St Edmunds, Haverhill and Culford. West Suffolk Athletics Club are based at the West Suffolk College sports ground. Local news and television programmes
11128-490: Was for a time the home of a thriving Jewish community, and it is likely, although not certain, that Moyse's Hall belonged to a Jewish merchant. On 18 March 1190, two days after the more well-known massacre of Jews at Clifford Tower in York , the people of Bury St Edmunds massacred 57 Jews. Later that year, Abbot Samson successfully petitioned King Richard I for permission to evict the town's remaining Jewish inhabitants "on
11235-463: Was formed in 2003. The election on 3 May 2007 was won by the "Abolish Bury Town Council" party. The party lost its majority following a by-election in June 2007 and, to date, the town council is still in existence. In March 2008 a further by-election put Conservatives in control but in the council election of May 2011 the lack of Conservative and other parties' candidates resulted a Labour majority before
11342-544: Was sacked by the townspeople in the 14th century and then largely destroyed during the 16th century with the Dissolution of the Monasteries , but the town remained prosperous throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, only falling into relative decline with the Industrial Revolution . Until the building of St John's in 1840, the town had just two parishes, St James's and St Mary's. The former has now become
11449-478: Was the deadliest ever recorded in Britain. The avalanche struck the cottages on Boulters Row (now part of South Street), burying fifteen people, of whom eight died. A pub in South Street is named The Snowdrop in memory of the event. In 1846, the town became a railway junction, with lines constructed from the north, south and east to two railway stations. The development of Newhaven ended Lewes's period as
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