01273 302170 www.staubynsschoolbrighton.co.uk - Viva Lewes

Photo by alex Leith
The 9.44am Hastings train
pulls out of the station and
thus begins one of the nicest
50-minute journeys you can
make by rail from Lewes. And
one which is almost guaranteed
to be quicker than by car, as the
A27 hits the Bexhill buffers.
My journey is to a much
mythologised and much
misunderstood town, too far
from London to be a commuter
town. But close enough to have
a familiar London overspill, for
good and ill.
Down the glen-like valley
from Lewes, into and back
out of Eastbourne, and as you
hit the coast, there comes the
hypnotic litany of stations made
real: Hampden Park, Pevensey
& Westham, Pevensey Bay,
Normans Bay, Cooden Beach,
Collington, Bexhill, St Leonards
Warrior Square and Hastings.
The many times I’ve been
through by rail, I’ve never
actually got off at St Leonards
Warrior Square. But chatting to
Juliet Harris, born and bred St
Leonards resident, I discover it
deserves far more than being an
overlooked adjunct to Hastings.
“It’s like a teeny London
borough, more diverse than
Hastings proper”, and though
not the new Notting Hill-on-
Sea touted by some, it does
indeed have a thriving arts
community and a welter of
second-hand shops. Plus, she
tells me, a Russian, an Armenian
and an upcoming Transylvanian
bar. And there are the kind of
old-fashioned greengrocers,
haberdashers and other stores
that have been gently nudged
out of Lewes. “Though every
other person I meet does seem
to be an aspiring artist.”
To get a flavour, Juliet
recommends a meander up from
the faded 1930s grandeur of
Marine Court (fondly known
as the Marina), the Arts Forum
and Bar Blah, and around the
Norman Road, Kings Road,
London Road nexus.
There are some truly fine
eateries, worth the journey
time alone – the St Clement’s
restaurant at the top of Norman
Road, an excessively good
French restaurant, more than
matches anything Lewes can
currently offer.
St Leonards also does things
differently in a way Lewesians
would applaud – such as the
creation of the “Wonky WI”,
which brings down speakers
about Stitch and Bitch sessions,
rarely makes jam, and certainly
never sings Jerusalem.
If I had got off, she also would
have recommended a shufti at
the Council-preserved Banksy
scribed on the sea front in 2009,
and a lunch at the Love Cafe,
similarly endowed with a massive
local Ben Eine-pixellated graffiti
image of Prince Charles, that is
now a local landmark.
But I stay on the train, planning
to return for St Leonards next
time, and head down to Hastings
Old Town via the modernity of
the Priory Meadows shopping
centre. Occupying what used
to be the cricket ground in the
heart of Hastings – with views
up to the Castle that must
have made for a fine place to
while away a Sunday - now
commemorated with a copper
cricketer, lofting a shot towards
neighbouRs
(yes, gaze jealously once more
Lewes) M&S and Waterstones.
The oldest parts of Hastings
lie over to the east. Around the
Rock-A-Nore there are of course
the classic fish & chip shops, a
fiercely fought contest between
local fishmongers, and the
largest beach-launched fishing
fleets left in the country.
And it’s here that new
developments may draw more
future Lewes footfall. The most
contentious battle for years has
been over the construction of
the new Jerwood Gallery on the
Stade. A proposal that aroused
strong passions – with local
people firmly for or against –
and a heady brew of council
politics, local business clashes,
parking concerns and multimillion
investments.
But that is now behind them and
with the opening scheduled for
mid-March, the broad consensus
is for it to succeed. Will it lead
to the hoped for renaissance for
the town?
If people do make their first
visit, drawn by the Jerwood,
they will find some fine pubs
in the Old Town – the Swan,
the Jenny Lind and the First
in Last Out – and a sauntering
mix of second-hand bookshops
and cafés along George Street.
Plus the eccentric and glorious
Electric Palace Cinema, which
Lewesians can only look at with
lust. As I wander back by the
twittenesque pathways over West
Hill and Hastings Castle, and
gaze out over the sea and the
glory of the mix of fun-fairs, fish
& chips and history, I can’t help
thinking: Viva Hastings. Viva St
Leonards. Rob Read
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