Perched on its two mottes at the heart of the old town of Lewes, this Norman castle founded in the eleventh century by William de Warenne still watches over Sussex. But in the Renaissance, its military glory was already extinct: Lewes belongs to that category of fortresses the Tudors quietly let sink into uselessness.
A Norman fortress out of its age
Lewes Castle has a rare peculiarity: it possesses two mottes, Brack Mount and the keep proper, topped by stone 'shell keeps', linked by an enclosure. A fourteenth-century barbican guarded its approach. But even before the Tudor age, its defensive function had died out: the Warenne earls had died out, the stronghold had no enemy left to repel, and the town had grown up around it. Lewes thus illustrates, like Bodiam or Guildford, the common fate of medieval castles in the Renaissance: no longer instruments of war, but remains that time gnaws.
Barbican House and the memory of Sussex
At the foot of the castle, Barbican House — a timber-framed house whose façade goes back in part to the sixteenth century — today houses the Sussex history museum of the Sussex Archaeological Society. There one follows the history of the county through the ages, notably with a great model of the town of Lewes. It is through this neighbourhood that the site fully enters our atlas: the sleeping fortress and the Tudor house together form a condensed image of the long duration of Sussex, from the Norman Middle Ages to the Renaissance. To see: the two mottes (Brack Mount and the keep), the stone shell keeps, the fourteenth-century barbican, Barbican House and its museum.
Did you know?
The fragility of old castles is not just an image: on 11 November 2019, a section of Lewes's curtain wall about 10 metres by 10 — some 600 tonnes of stone — collapsed onto a neighbouring house, happily without casualties. Eight centuries after its building, the Norman fortress recalled, brutally, that no wall is eternal.
Notes
Lewes Castle & Barbican House Museum lie at Lewes, East Sussex; site and museum run by the Sussex Archaeological Society (Sussex Past). Hours to check.
Quiz
- What is rare about Lewes Castle?
- It has two mottes
- It floats on water
- It is of rose-pink brick
- In what state was its military function in the Tudor age?
- Extinct (an abandoned fortress)
- At its height
- Under full reconstruction
- What is found at Barbican House?
- The Sussex history museum
- An Elizabethan theatre
- The royal archives