December

[Sweder]

How frustrating! I only have a few minutes to log tonight's run; I could write a book - quite a large one at that.

Taking Dan's advice a step (or two) further I took in the town tonight. Home, laptop bag tossed into my office, a change of clothes, a kiss for the wife, an apologetic shrug for the eager, soon-to-be-disappointed hounds and I was off into the surpisingly warm, moonlit Sussex evening. Starting at the house atop one of the hills that made Lewes such a defendable fortress (and therefore an important trading point for the region through the ages) I lolloped lazily through the neighbourhood and down past the forbidding, flint-jagged facade of the Victorian prison with its small, mean windows and high curls of razor wire, across the main road junction to Lewes Cemetery. I climbed the locked, hip-high pedestrian gate in eerie near-darkness, following the heavily-sloped moss-coated pathway down through the Garden of Remembrance into the silent, heavily-shadowed home of the dead.

At the bottom of the hill I vaulted the high brick wall and dropped onto the Winterbourne footpath. The Winterbourne is a man-made subterranian canal carrying excess rainwater (much of which runs off the chalk-based hills) away to the river Ouse where the waters embrace before their short journey through Rodmell to the Newhaven coast. From there I ran uphill to the Swan, turning left onto Southover High Street heading east towards the station. Past Anne of Cleaves House (now licensed for civil ceremonies), the tall splendour of Southover Church and the end of leafy Cockshut Road (leading to the Southdown Tennis & Hockey club and bar, a door I've yet to darken). I followed the quirky bend in the street breaking north (past the Kings Head) to Southover Grange, the stunning registry office formerly known as Southover House or Southover Priory. Built by William Newton, the Earl of Dorset in 1572 with Caen stone taken from the nearby ruins of St Pancras Priory the Grange was home to the Newton family for almost 300 years until 1860. In the 1790’s the Prince of Wales, who later became the Prince Regent and King George IV, often stayed at the Grange, sleeping in what is now known as the Regent’s bedroom. This is also where Mrs S and I tied the knot a fair few summers ago, which of course elevated its status to that of priceless National Treasure.

Here the road wriggles past the bottom of Keere Street (a violently steep, cobbled lane, home at the summit to the fabulous 15th Century Bookshop) to cross Station Street to the Lansdown pub (host to RCers before & after Lewes v West Ham in 2006 and home to the white-painted trunk of a petrified tree, not to mention an eclectic parade of local musical talent) and into Lansdown Place before it morphs into Friars walk.

I followed the curve of these narrow streets under the lea of various colourful emopria - a sculptor's studio, a Barber's Shop replete with candy-cane pole, an Indian Restaurant, an old-fashioned haberdashery and the wonderful All Saints centre, venue for gigs, meetings, the occasional ceilidh or fund-raising barn-dance and some-time home of the Lewes Cinema Club. I ducked right into Court Road opposite the Sussex Ambulance HQ (vocational residence of Captain Tom), squeezing between Argos and The Riverside, a two-storey wooden structure housing a mouthwatering array of eateries and purveyours of fine meats, fish and cheeses. Right again to climb the cobbled hump-backed bridge, past the famous Harveys Brewery and Brewery Shop (on the left), the John Harvey Tavern & Bill's (on the right) before heading on up Cliffe High Street, waving to the ruddy-cheeked occupants of the Gardners' Arms, possibly the friendliest pub in Lewes and, according to the Harveys Master Brewer, the best keeper of his Best Bitter between here and the far edge for the known world.

To the end of the high street under the rising wall of The Cliffe to loop left past the Dorset Arms, home to the Cliffe Bonfire Boys and scene of many an ugly lock-in on certain nights of the year, up Malling Street, left again onto the Phoenix Causeway to re-cross the river before the long pull up Little East Street, North Street and West Street (past SP's beloved Spice Merchant). Left here into Castle Ditch Lane (still climbing), a laboured slingshot around the turret-like front of the Lewes Arms, scene of the Greene King Wars, for the steep climb up Precincts Castle. At last I reached the top of the town, puffing and panting like an old steam engine, a light sheen of sweat glistening under the harsh glow of the electric street lamps. You know I've rarely felt so damned thirsty on such a short run! The cobbled walkway shimmered underfoot, the days' rain leaving a slippery coating on the old, hard stones. Above me the parapets bristled, ancient stone walls illuminated by hidden arc lamps. I juddered down the slope beneath the 14th Century Barbican gate, skidding onto the brick-paved High Street to continue my public house fly-past.



I paid my sweaty respects to the Two Brewers, Shelly's, The Pelham Arms and the Black Horse (all uphill) before scampering past the boarded frontage of the Meridian, closed a few months back. The pub, usually inhabited by what always seemed to me to be a large extended family, took its' name from the location; astride the Greenwich Meridian line. A wall-mounted plaque remains, hopefully to be retained by the new owners whatever their intentions for the property (almost certainly conversion to claustraphobic multiple-tenant housing; there's a dearth of affordable accommodation here which the impending National Park status can only exacerbate). In years past there would have been one more pub, the Windmill at the end of Spital Road at the junction with the A275 Neville Road. This went the way of all flesh well over a decade ago, no longer recognisable as a former hostilry in its present-day domestic drab.

I crossed the 275, heading north past the Victoria Hospital before the sharp left-hander into Neville Crescent and the short, tough climb up Southway; home.
6.03 kilometres in 38 minutes. Centuries of history and, in the hearths and snugs of those convivial imbiberies, pleasure that can't be measured in dull, dry prose.