Lewes Bonfire Booze Crawl
Nine pubs, about a mile and a half, ending on the Greenwich meridian. Lewes is a county town of seventeen thousand people with more good pubs than towns five times its size. The walk below is the one CAMRA South East Sussex recommends, in the order the ground suggests: out of the station, downhill to the Cliffe, then back up the High Street until the pavement runs out at zero degrees longitude.
Not on the fifth of November
Do not attempt this on Bonfire Night. Lewes on the fifth is not a pub crawl, it is six processions through a town of seventeen thousand, with up to five thousand marching and tens of thousands watching. The shops board their windows. Many of these pubs go ticket-only, members-only or simply shut their doors, and the railway station has been known to close.
Go and see the bonfire if you can get there and back. Do this walk on any other night of the year, when the town is itself again.
The nine
Two minutes from the platform, which makes it either the first pub or the last one depending on how the day goes. Greene King, with guest ales beside it, and a courtyard at the back.
Still in the station’s orbit. Timothy Taylor Landlord is usually on, and it fills up on match days, so it is better early in the walk than late.
The brewery’s own house, across the yard from where the beer is made. Seasonals turn up here first, some of it straight from the cask, and this is where Bonfire Boy appears every November. If you only make one stop on this list, it is this one.
A few doors along and a different proposition: small, free of any brewery, and reliably carrying at least one dark beer. Cider too. The pub CAMRA members in this part of Sussex name first.
Back over the river and up the hill. Harvey’s showcase pub, named for the Thomas Paine connection the town never stops mentioning, and priced for the tourists it attracts. Terrace at the rear.
Tucked behind the castle, beside the old ditch where the pea-throwing happens. Fuller’s own it now, and Harvey’s Sussex Best is on all year, which is the whole story: in 2006 Greene King took that beer off and the town boycotted the pub until it came back.
A locals’ pub with guest ales, a pool table and the football on, none of which gets in the way. Built in 1838 to stable the horses on a new road into town, and by CAMRA’s own account it still hosts one of the bonfire societies and a Saturday folk club, which tells you more about the place than any tasting note.
A free house, so the range moves: regional and local, and cider on. Two rooms with two moods, the back one loud when there is sport, the front one not.
The furthest west and the reason to keep walking. Greene King own it and stock a good range of Sussex beer that is not theirs, which is rarer than it sounds. It also sits on the Greenwich meridian: our own record puts it at four hundred-thousandths of a degree east of zero, which is about three metres. Finish your pint in the eastern hemisphere and step outside into both.
CAMRA note that the Black Horse can be dropped to shorten the walk. We would keep it and drop something else, for the reason above.
If you have longer
Two more worth the detour, both east of the Cliffe and both away from the line of the walk. The Snowdrop Inn on South Street, built in 1840 on the ground where the 1836 avalanche buried a row of cottages and killed eight people, and named for it rather than for the flower. And The Dorset on Malling Street, a Harvey’s house and the headquarters of the Cliffe Bonfire Society for the past hundred and sixty years.
Nine pubs, one river, one hill, one meridian. Pace yourself: the High Street is steeper than it looks on a map, and it is all uphill on the way back.
Walk it in the app
Every stop above links to its page in PINtPOINT, where you can see what has been seen on tap there recently and how far it is from wherever you are standing.
Tap lists move. On the night, check the app rather than this page.