The town of Lewes, with its picturesque cottages and bustling high street full of antiquarian bookshops and artisanal bakeries, might seem the very model of traditional English respectability. Named the “prettiest place in the U.K.” by The Telegraph (a trusted arbiter of British middle-class tastes), sedate tea shops and art galleries line the medieval alleyways where smartly dressed locals greet each other courteously. Even the local flea market, housed in a former Methodist chapel, is an upstanding example of grand Victorian architecture. Yet beneath this veneer of conservative conformity lies a history of radicalism that runs to the core of this quaint Sussex town.
Each year on November 5th, Lewes turns into a blazing frenzy of raucous anti-establishmentarianism. Its cute coffee shops and organic grocery stores lie abandoned as grotesque effigies (or “tableaux”) of public figures – ranging from British prime ministers and business leaders to the Pope and, more recently, Joe Biden and Donald Trump — are set on fire and paraded through the streets.
Lewes Bonfire Night Celebrations, the biggest and oldest in Britain (dating to 1795), exemplify the spirit of rebellion in this town where Thomas Paine, the English-born American Founding Father, political philosopher and one of the world’s first international revolutionaries, lived 250 years ago.
Paine, whose writings influenced both the American and French Revolutions and helped inspire the U.S. Declaration of Independence, lived in Bull House on Lewes’ High Street from 1768 to 1774. While working there as an excise officer, collecting taxes on behalf of King George III, Paine was a frequent speaker at a political debating society, The White Hart Evening Club. Its meetings were held at the 16th-Century inn, The White Hart, which also lies on Lewes High Street – it recently reopened after a major refurbishment as a luxury hotel complete with restaurant and bars, yet retains many of the original features from Paine’s time, including his initials carved into one of the fireplaces.
The White Hart has once again become a centre of life in Lewes. It’s also a place of pilgrimage for Americans fascinated to see where many of the ideas that would eventually lead to the birth of their nation were first formulated; as well as for the politely radical citizens of Lewes who celebrate Paine’s memory and the enlightenment principles he espoused.
A statue of Paine stands proudly outside the town’s library, whilst his tradition of bold political discourse is also honoured at the annual Lewes Speakers Festival. The January 2025 event will feature Penny Mordaunt, the former U.K. Secretary of State for Defence, talking about how the country’s deep divisions can be overcome by political reform. A subject that Paine – who once said, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” (quoted in speeches by both Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Barack Obama in 2009) – would have no doubt approved.
After being fired from his job for attacking Excise officers pay and conditions in his first published pamphlet, “The Case of the Officers of Excise”, Paine left Lewes for Philadelphia in 1774, intending to make a new life in the American Colonies (on the advice of Benjamin Franklin whom he had met in London). It was in Philadelphia that he used the political skills he had honed in Lewes to write “Common Sense”. This 50-page pamphlet, widely read during the American Revolution, sold more than half a million copies and paved the way for the Declaration of Independence, which Paine is believed to have helped draft, by advocating for a republican government free from British control.
Bull House, where he lived, is now in the hands of the Sussex Archaeological Society; established in 1846, it is the oldest of its kind in Britain. According to the Society’s museums officer, Emma O’Connor, Lewes is a magnet for visiting history lovers as well as for residents moving here from the capital, many of whom commute to arts and media jobs in London, just an hour away by train.
“A lot of Thomas Paine’s Lewes would still be familiar to him today,” she said. “Lewes is a historic town and all the best bits are still there. And you can’t fail to notice that bang in the middle of Lewes High Street, there’s a stonking great castle!”
Originally begun just after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (the site of which lies less than 25 miles to the east of Lewes), the Norman castle took 300 years to complete. It is open to the public and now adjoins Lewes Museum, which covers all periods of the town’s history, including Paine and the annual bonfire celebrations.
Julian Bell, an artist and a Lewesian believes “the Lewes area has always had a community on the radical, liberal side, including some of my ancestors. Bell’s mural of Thomas Paine, painted in 1994, is on display in the town’s Market Passage. And, for this year’s Lewes Bonfire Celebrations, he helped create a tableau of the Houses of Parliament which were then blown up as part of the town’s anarchic festivities. “We were fulfilling Guy Fawkes’ intentions to destroy the seat of parliamentary democracy,” Bell tells me, jokingly. Paine and his respectfully rebellious friends at The White Hart preferred a less direct form of action to Guy Fawkes: the power of the printing press.
“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren” is another of the favourite sayings of the political philosopher. However far and wide this pioneering revolutionary and his rebellious ideas travelled, though, there will forever be a part of him that remains in Lewes. For those looking to change the world themselves – or merely enjoy a quiet pint by a cosy fireplace – The White Hart in Lewes is not a bad place to start.
As a footnote to this piece, I spent three years at Sussex University, which is only a few miles down the road from Lewes and, although I did visit a few times – mostly spent in pubs – I am ashamed to admit I learned nothing about Thomas Paine. I hope to rectify that at some point – sixty years later!
Lovely town. Very artsy. Looked at buying a house there but was put off by the steep hill up the Main Street. Far too much effort to climb at my age.