Lewes

Just back from Lewes, where my brother celebrated his birthday this weekend. He lives there very happily with his family. But to me it's one of those English towns where the past is so overwhelming it keeps trying to break into the present. Some places are like that; haunted by their own history. Lewes is pretty much intact, spared wartime bombs and the wrecking ball and architectural brutalism of the urban redevelopment of the 1960s. So it isn't hard to imagine people in period costume gliding through its narrow, cobbled lanes or peering through the leaded panes of the windows of its old buildings. Well, it isn't hard to imagine after dark, after a few glasses of Harveys, the truly excellent locally brewed beer. There is a Lewes based artist called Peter Meller who has captured the slightly sinister atmosphere of the place in some of his paintings. And there are any number of excellent pubs there serving the aforementioned Harveys.