Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England.
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider district of the same name. and lies on the River Ouse at the point where the river cuts through the South Downs. Lewes is approximately 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Brighton, 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Eastbourne, and 25 miles (40 km) east of Hastings. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 16,723.
Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Worth seeing in and around Lewes
10 places within 25 km that the world writes about, in the order of how widely: the ones a visitor has heard of first, then the ones only a local would name.
- 01Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.
3.7 km · English opera festival · Wikipedia - 02Lewes Castle
Lewes Castle is a medieval castle in the town of Lewes in East Sussex, England. Originally called Bray Castle, it occupies a commanding position guarding the gap in the South Downs cut by the River Ouse and occupied by the towns of Lewes and Cliffe.
400 m · Grade I listed ruins in Lewes, United Kingdom · Wikipedia - 03Monk's House
Monk's House is a 17th-century weatherboarded cottage in the village of Rodmell, three miles south of Lewes, East Sussex, England. The writer Virginia Woolf and her husband, the political activist, journalist and editor Leonard Woolf, bought the house by auction at the White Hart Hotel, Lewes, on 1 July 1919 for 700 pounds, and received there many visitors connected to the Bloomsbury Group, including T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Roger Fry and Lytton Strachey.
4 km · historic house in Rodmell, East Sussex, now a National Trust property, was from 1919 until their deaths the home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf · Wikipedia - 04Lewes Priory
Lewes Priory is a part-demolished medieval Cluniac priory in Lewes, East Sussex in the United Kingdom. The ruins have been designated a Grade I listed building.
700 m · Grade I listed ruins in Lewes, East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia - 05Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
3.7 km · English country house in East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia - 06Offham Hill Causewayed Enclosure
Offham Hill is a causewayed enclosure near Lewes, East Sussex, England. Causewayed enclosures were built in England from shortly before 3700 BC until about 3300 BC; they are characterized by the full or partial enclosure of an area with ditches that are interrupted by gaps, or causeways.
2.3 km · archaeological site in Hamsey, Lewes, England, UK · Wikipedia - 07Southerham Grey Pit
Southerham Grey Pit is a 8.5-hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-east of Lewes in East Sussex. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.
1.8 km · Site of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia - 08St Mary's Church, Glynde
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a Grade II* listed Anglican church in the village of Glynde in East Sussex. It was built in the 1760s by Richard Trevor, bishop of Durham, whose family seat was the adjacent Glynde Place.
4.1 km · church in East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia - 09Barbican House Museum
Barbican House is a sixteenth century house next to Lewes Castle. It is now used as a museum, and is the headquarters of the Sussex Archaeological Society.
300 m · house museum next to Lewes castle, East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia - 10Anne of Cleves House
Anne of Cleves House is a 16th-century timber-framed Wealden hall house located in Lewes, East Sussex, England. It formed part of Queen Anne's annulment settlement from King Henry VIII in 1541, although she never visited the property.
800 m · Grade I listed historic house museum in Lewes, Lewes, East Sussex, England, UK · Wikipedia
Ranked by the number of language editions of Wikipedia with an article on each, from Wikidata; the sentences are the openings of those articles, CC BY-SA 4.0.
What Wikivoyage says to see
- 01Lewes Castle & Museum
950-year-old Norman Castle built after the Battle of Hastings.
- 02Anne of Cleves House & Museum
Combined tickets available with Lewes Castle.
- 03Monk's House
Rodmell, BN7 3HF, monkshouse@nationaltrust.org.uk.
From Wikivoyage: Lewes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Things to do
- 01Glyndebourne
An internationally renowned opera house, a few miles from Lewes.
- 02Southover Grange Gardens
Southover Grange is a house built in 1572.
- 03Plumpton Racecourse
Plumpton Racecourse Ltd, Plumpton, BN7 3AL, racing@plumptonracecourse.co.uk.
From Wikivoyage: Lewes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Where to eat
Lewes boasts a range of international cuisine including Indian, Thai, Chinese, Italian, Polish and good old traditional English pub grub.
- 01The Snowdrop Inn
119 South St, Lewes BN7 2BU (in Cliffe, at the bottom of town),.
- 02Elephant and Castle
White Hill, BN7 2DJ (just off of the High Street),.
- 03Pailin
For an oriental flavour, wonderful Thai restaurant.
From Wikivoyage: Lewes, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not yet checked by us.
Getting to Lewes
- Airports
- London Gatwick (LGW), 33 km · London Heathrow (LHR), 74 km · London Stansted (STN), 113 km
- Stations
- Lewes railway station, 400 m · Southease railway station, 5.1 km · Cooksbridge railway station, 3.6 km · Glynde railway station, 4.5 km · Barcombe Mills railway station, 4.8 km
- London → Lewes71 km · quickest by road, 2h 24m · £8–11
- London, Essex → Lewes71 km · quickest by road, 2h 24m · £8–11
- Luton, Luton → Lewes116 km · quickest by road, 2h 25m · £15–19
- Plan a tripFrom anywhereThe planner compares every way there from wherever you are.
Road and air are today’s quick answer; timetabled trains, buses and ferries load on the results page from the operators’ feeds.
No local-transport research exists yet for Lewes
Our researched notes are written from a sourced entry: every shared taxi, boat and village bus with its operator, its rule, its fare and the year we saw it, and what could not be confirmed. Nobody has done that work for Lewes. What is above is what we hold from open sources; nothing here pretends to be more.
- Get inThere are several different services to choose from in and around Lewes: Rome2Rio operates a bus that offers a once-a-day trip between Washington D.C.'s Union Station to Rehobeth Beach.
- Get inYou can also visit Lewes by boat from Cape May by traveling on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry on a seventy minute ride across the Delaware Bay.
- Get aroundCape May-Lewes Ferry Trolley- if you are a foot passenger traveling to Lewes, there is the option of the trolley that the ferry provides.
- Go nextThere are different options available for vacationers looking to take day trips from Lewes: Cape May, New Jersey - A seventy minute ferry ride takes you across the Delaware Bay to the small town of Cape May where you can enjoy beaches, shopping, restaurants, and site seeing of beautiful Victorian architecture.
From Wikivoyage: Lewes (Delaware), CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us; that article was last edited 2026-09.
- 0195 km
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If you know how people move in Lewes – the stand, the rule, the fare – tell us, and the note gets an entry.
Next door to Lewes
- Kingston near Lewesvillage in the Lewes district of East Sussex, England2.8 km
- Ringmervillage and civil parish in East Sussex, UK3.2 km
- Beddinghamvillage and civil parish in the Lewes district of East Sussex, England, UK3.8 km
- Glyndevillage and civil parish in East Sussex, UK4.2 km
- Barcombevillage and civil parish in East Sussex, England, UK3.9 km
- Ifordvillage and civil parish in East Sussex, UK3.1 km