By Sarah Bayliss
I have lived in the Pells area of Lewes for more than 30 years and am a trustee of Pells Pool. I am a retired journalist, not a historian, though my mother was a history teacher so I understand how the past reaches down to influence our lives. Story-telling is what makes me tick and this town is full of stories.
In recent years I have been involved in producing two local history books: The Lewes Town Hall Pictures: Stories Behind our Paintings, which grew out of a project inspired by Councillor Mike Turner to restore three big paintings - and The Pells of Lewes: Pool, Park, People and Places, published by Lewes History Group to mark the donation of a crucial piece of land by the Baxter printing family to the people of the town a century ago. In 2019-20 I helped run a ‘centenary’ textile project to make bunting for the pool and neighbourhood, involving 70 women from the community.
Both books were designed by my husband Mick Hawksworth and the more recent one – produced in lockdown – I co-edited with my friend and neighbour Ruth Thomson who conceived the idea. Both were enjoyable community ventures and have been well-received. Researching the books invariably meant interviewing lots of people and seeking evidence at The Keep - the invaluable East Sussex Record Office at Falmer. I learned such a lot from maps, street directories, poll books and shipping logs, about the lives of people who have made our town - their networks, businesses and influences.
So, it was a pleasure to be asked by Human Nature to join their first Walk and Talk, focusing on the industrial influence of the river, which borders their seven-acre Phoenix site, along with historian Jennifer Chibnall. I am now more convinced than ever that the industrial history of Lewes matters, since it is rooted in the history of the River Ouse - its tides, springs, bridges, wharves and prospects of the sea – which are still here for us to understand and enjoy.
The industries supported by the river gave life to Lewes: the famous Phoenix Ironworks whose products, such as lamposts and bandstands, still grace our seaside towns while drain covers are everywhere here; a papermill which produced bank notes; numerous breweries using pure water from our chalk aquifers; several timber yards and shipyards upstream, as well as downstream, from Cliffe Bridge; plus every kind of commerce using barges and sailing ships from Newhaven. ‘The navigation of the Ouse, confers upon Lewes all the advantages of a seaport,’ said Pigot’s directory of 1839.
For the Town Hall book I researched a bright and lively painting of The Wallands, a two-masted, flat-bottomed sailing ship, built and owned by Edward Chatfield, a timber merchant who became a shipping magnate, housebuilder and high constable (local politician) and died a millionaire. The artist is unknown and I could not establish if Chatfield commissioned him or her, but I like to think so.
The keel of the ship was launched on New Year’s Day in 1866 from Chatfield's yard at St John’s Wharf, probably now the Corporation Wharf car park – with masts and rigging installed downstream in a timber yard off South Street. This audacious and enterprising man owned shares in more than a dozen ships, eight of which were built at Lewes including The Wallands. It was probably his favourite since he owned it for eight long years while it voyaged up and down the east coast carrying Sussex timber to Sunderland, returning with coal to fire his sawmills. Its last trip was said to carry a cargo of oak tree nails to the Baltic.
Chatfield built two big houses in Lewes for his wife Elizabeth, their eight children and four servants; first, in 1864 at 5 Wallands Crescent – a home with a view of the river which surely gave him the name for his ship – and then at Belle Vue, the largest house in St Anne’s Crescent which later became Southdown House.
He was a benefactor too, giving generously to the building of the Pells Pool in 1860 and hosting legendary parties for his employees, customers and fellow ship-owners to mark the launch of every vessel. A launch without a celebration was said to bring bad luck so there was always bunting and lashings of beer. He chaired a committee to support villages affected by cholera and to prevent an epidemic reaching Lewes. He knew the value of cleanwater and, after the death of his younger son Thomas at sea, must have felt its power more keenly.
We should not romanticise about the past or pretend that the notable architecture of Lewes is simply listed buildings: a castle and genteel Georgian facades. It is much more than that -including tall warehouses, industrial chimneys and narrow twittens with high walls. Life was hard for many Lewesians in centuries past, as evidenced by buildings - a workhouse for the poor, a mortuary at the biggest ironworks and two prisons. Terraced houses were often overcrowded by today’s standards and while children were free to play in streets without cars, they sometimes fell in the Pells lake and drowned.
As the historian Colin Brent has said, Lewes was ‘intensely alive’ in Victorian times – an image which contrasts harshly with the empty and derelict site that the Phoenix has become in this millennium. It is a big piece of land with room for 700 dwellings with gardens and public open spaces. In the next decade it should be transformed into a new, riverside neighbourhood, ‘intensely alive’ with all the advantages of flood defences, a river walkway, a modern transport hub and a new footbridge - called after Tom Paine no less, our most famous citizen whose radical writings (The Rights of Man and Common Sense) built literal bridges between Britain and America.
I believe that a sustainable transformation by Human Nature, which imagines the future of housing, transport and community-living, cannot come soon enough. I hope I am still around to enjoy it and that perhaps our grandchildren will live there.
By Sarah Bayliss
I have lived in the Pells area of Lewes for more than 30 years and am a trustee of Pells Pool. I am a retired journalist, not a historian, though my mother was a history teacher so I understand how the past reaches down to influence our lives. Story-telling is what makes me tick and this town is full of stories.
In recent years I have been involved in producing two local history books: The Lewes Town Hall Pictures: Stories Behind our Paintings, which grew out of a project inspired by Councillor Mike Turner to restore three big paintings - and The Pells of Lewes: Pool, Park, People and Places, published by Lewes History Group to mark the donation of a crucial piece of land by the Baxter printing family to the people of the town a century ago. In 2019-20 I helped run a ‘centenary’ textile project to make bunting for the pool and neighbourhood, involving 70 women from the community.
Both books were designed by my husband Mick Hawksworth and the more recent one – produced in lockdown – I co-edited with my friend and neighbour Ruth Thomson who conceived the idea. Both were enjoyable community ventures and have been well-received. Researching the books invariably meant interviewing lots of people and seeking evidence at The Keep - the invaluable East Sussex Record Office at Falmer. I learned such a lot from maps, street directories, poll books and shipping logs, about the lives of people who have made our town - their networks, businesses and influences.
So, it was a pleasure to be asked by Human Nature to join their first Walk and Talk, focusing on the industrial influence of the river, which borders their seven-acre Phoenix site, along with historian Jennifer Chibnall. I am now more convinced than ever that the industrial history of Lewes matters, since it is rooted in the history of the River Ouse - its tides, springs, bridges, wharves and prospects of the sea – which are still here for us to understand and enjoy.
The industries supported by the river gave life to Lewes: the famous Phoenix Ironworks whose products, such as lamposts and bandstands, still grace our seaside towns while drain covers are everywhere here; a papermill which produced bank notes; numerous breweries using pure water from our chalk aquifers; several timber yards and shipyards upstream, as well as downstream, from Cliffe Bridge; plus every kind of commerce using barges and sailing ships from Newhaven. ‘The navigation of the Ouse, confers upon Lewes all the advantages of a seaport,’ said Pigot’s directory of 1839.
For the Town Hall book I researched a bright and lively painting of The Wallands, a two-masted, flat-bottomed sailing ship, built and owned by Edward Chatfield, a timber merchant who became a shipping magnate, housebuilder and high constable (local politician) and died a millionaire. The artist is unknown and I could not establish if Chatfield commissioned him or her, but I like to think so.
The keel of the ship was launched on New Year’s Day in 1866 from Chatfield's yard at St John’s Wharf, probably now the Corporation Wharf car park – with masts and rigging installed downstream in a timber yard off South Street. This audacious and enterprising man owned shares in more than a dozen ships, eight of which were built at Lewes including The Wallands. It was probably his favourite since he owned it for eight long years while it voyaged up and down the east coast carrying Sussex timber to Sunderland, returning with coal to fire his sawmills. Its last trip was said to carry a cargo of oak tree nails to the Baltic.
Chatfield built two big houses in Lewes for his wife Elizabeth, their eight children and four servants; first, in 1864 at 5 Wallands Crescent – a home with a view of the river which surely gave him the name for his ship – and then at Belle Vue, the largest house in St Anne’s Crescent which later became Southdown House.
He was a benefactor too, giving generously to the building of the Pells Pool in 1860 and hosting legendary parties for his employees, customers and fellow ship-owners to mark the launch of every vessel. A launch without a celebration was said to bring bad luck so there was always bunting and lashings of beer. He chaired a committee to support villages affected by cholera and to prevent an epidemic reaching Lewes. He knew the value of cleanwater and, after the death of his younger son Thomas at sea, must have felt its power more keenly.
We should not romanticise about the past or pretend that the notable architecture of Lewes is simply listed buildings: a castle and genteel Georgian facades. It is much more than that -including tall warehouses, industrial chimneys and narrow twittens with high walls. Life was hard for many Lewesians in centuries past, as evidenced by buildings - a workhouse for the poor, a mortuary at the biggest ironworks and two prisons. Terraced houses were often overcrowded by today’s standards and while children were free to play in streets without cars, they sometimes fell in the Pells lake and drowned.
As the historian Colin Brent has said, Lewes was ‘intensely alive’ in Victorian times – an image which contrasts harshly with the empty and derelict site that the Phoenix has become in this millennium. It is a big piece of land with room for 700 dwellings with gardens and public open spaces. In the next decade it should be transformed into a new, riverside neighbourhood, ‘intensely alive’ with all the advantages of flood defences, a river walkway, a modern transport hub and a new footbridge - called after Tom Paine no less, our most famous citizen whose radical writings (The Rights of Man and Common Sense) built literal bridges between Britain and America.
I believe that a sustainable transformation by Human Nature, which imagines the future of housing, transport and community-living, cannot come soon enough. I hope I am still around to enjoy it and that perhaps our grandchildren will live there.