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its and bobs<br />
ian seccombe’s point of view<br />
Ian’s latest photograph is, as ever, bang on theme, and for the second time running, comes with a salient<br />
Shakespeare quote. “‘All that glisters is not gold’ (The Merchant of Venice, II, vii),” he writes. “At this<br />
time of year golden bracken can look wonderful in the sunlight but in the summer it’s a real menace,<br />
swamping other plants and choking the pathways. Lane End Common, North Chailey.”<br />
town plaques #9: greyfriars gateway<br />
On the curve of Friars Walk, just before All Saints church, is a gateway<br />
that looks like it might be a back gate to the churchyard. When unlocked,<br />
you can get in that way, but the stone arch was ‘transplanted’ in<br />
the 19th century from the old Greyfriars a couple of hundred metres<br />
away, a monastic site which stood where Fitzroy House and the Magistrate’s<br />
Court car park (surely soon to be renamed…) once stood. Excavations<br />
in the 1980s showed extensive foundations, going under the old<br />
Uckfield railway line viaduct over Cliffe High Street. The Greyfriars,<br />
a mission-centred, socially-concerned Franciscan order, came to <strong>Lewes</strong><br />
in the early thirteenth century and this was one of the last Friaries to<br />
be closed, late in 1538. The narrow strip of land behind the archway is<br />
manorial waste – of disputed ownership from ancient times - which is<br />
now tended by volunteers. Marcus Taylor<br />
16
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