Viva Lewes Issue #140 May 2018
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PUBS AND BOBS<br />
GHOST PUB #43: THE KINGS ARMS, 47 NORTH STREET<br />
Some older <strong>Lewes</strong>ians will remember the Kings Arms. It<br />
was situated on the corner of North Street and Wellington<br />
Street, and closed in 1965. It had stood there since<br />
the 1820s, and was known as the ‘Kings Arms Inn’ by the<br />
time George Weller took over as landlord in 1840. However,<br />
within a few years other establishments had sprung<br />
up in the area, and in 1859 Hillmans Brewery noted that<br />
‘the house had much decreased in value, owing to the<br />
opening of several beershops in the neighbourhood’.<br />
John Dunstone ran the Kings Arms for ten years. The<br />
police had a constant battle with him, and at a court case in 1856 complained that Dunstone kept ‘abusing<br />
them and calling them names’. He was suspended for a fortnight for selling beer to ‘the roughs’ after hours.<br />
The Kings Arms was one of fourteen pubs designated for closure in the 1907 <strong>Lewes</strong> pub cull. However, it was<br />
one of the two pubs on that list which were reprieved, despite the fact that landlord George Ferguson was<br />
fined heavily for allowing gambling on the premises that same summer. As the twentieth century wore on, the<br />
Kings Arms saw its four rival pubs in North Street disappear one by one, and by 1959 it was the only one left.<br />
This photograph shows where the pub once stood. It is hard to believe so much revelry took place at this now<br />
quiet and innocuous corner. Mat Homewood<br />
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