Lewes

Lewes rewards visitors who base themselves within walking distance of its steep central streets, since much of the appeal of the town lies in wandering between the castle, the antique shops and the brewery without needing a car. The historic core around the High Street and Cliffe holds the widest choice, from a Georgian townhouse hotel with its own event gardens to small owner-run guest houses tucked into quiet side streets, and staying here puts Bonfire Night, the Saturday market and the evening pubs all within a few minutes on foot. Southover, just south of the centre near Anne of Cleves House, offers a quieter alternative with the same easy access to the sights, while a short walk from the railway station puts visitors within a couple of minutes of direct trains to London and Brighton.

Anyone happy to widen the search slightly will find some of the most characterful places to stay are actually just outside Lewes itself, in villages such as Ditchling, Firle and East Chiltington on the fringes of the South Downs. These are working pubs with a handful of rooms above the bar rather than large hotels, and they suit visitors who want a rural evening and a proper Sussex pint before heading back into town the next morning. Booking well ahead matters more here than in most English market towns: Lewes fills completely for Bonfire Night on 5 November, when the town effectively closes its centre for a parade watched by tens of thousands of people, and rooms across the whole area are typically taken months in advance of that date. The Glyndebourne opera season through the summer has a similar, smaller effect on availability in the villages closest to Ringmer. Outside those two peaks, Lewes is a manageable size and a comfortable base for exploring the wider Sussex coast and Downs, with Brighton only a quarter of an hour away by train for visitors who want to combine a quieter stay with easy access to the seafront.

Lewes rewards slow exploration, but these are the sights and experiences most visitors build a trip around.

• Lewes Castle is an 11th-century Norman fortress built by William de Warenne, with two mottes (a rare feature in England) and views from the keep across the rooftops to the Downs beyond.
• Anne of Cleves House, a timber-framed Wealden hall house given to Henry VIII's fourth wife as part of their divorce settlement, is now a museum of Tudor life and Sussex crafts run by the Sussex Archaeological Society.
• Harveys Brewery occupies a Victorian tower brewery on Cliffe Bridge, and its tap room and the pubs it supplies across town offer the most direct way to taste Sussex brewing tradition.
• Lewes Priory, the ruined remains of a once-vast Cluniac monastery founded shortly after the Norman Conquest, stands in open parkland near the site of the 1264 Battle of Lewes between Henry III and Simon de Montfort.
• Southover Grange Gardens, a walled Elizabethan garden behind a handsome flint mansion, is a favourite spot for a picnic and sits a short walk from Anne of Cleves House.
• Pells Pool, opened in 1861, is reputed to be the oldest freshwater open-air public swimming pool in Britain and remains a much-loved summer spot for locals.
• Cliffe High Street and the Twittens, the narrow alleyways connecting the town's parallel streets, hold most of the antique shops, independent bookshops and galleries that give Lewes its browsing appeal.
• Bonfire Night on 5 November sees seven bonfire societies parade through the town in costume with flaming torches and burning barrels, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to what is widely regarded as the country's biggest and most theatrical Bonfire celebration.

Harveys remains the town's defining culinary export, and its cask ales, particularly Sussex Best Bitter, are on tap in most of the traditional pubs along the High Street and down towards the bridge. The Saturday farmers' market in the Cliffe precinct and the town's independent food shops make the most of produce from the surrounding Sussex farmland, including Southdown lamb, local cheeses and orchard fruit from the Weald. Lewes has also long punched above its weight for casual dining, having been the birthplace of the Bill's restaurant chain, which started as a greengrocer and café on Cliffe High Street before expanding nationally. The gastropubs in the villages just outside town, several of which also offer rooms, are worth the short trip for anyone keen on modern British cooking built around Sussex ingredients, while the town centre itself has a good spread of cafés, delis and small independent restaurants tucked along the twittens between the main streets.

Lewes itself has no campsite within the town, but the chalk downland and river valleys on its doorstep hold a good spread of sites within a few miles, from farm campsites on the South Downs Way to woodland glamping a short drive towards Ditchling. The terrain is typical South Downs country: close-cropped chalk grassland on the high ground, giving big skies and long views but also exposure to wind and weather with very little tree cover, and river meadows in the valleys around the Ouse and the Glynde Reach that are lush and sheltered but can be damp underfoot after wet weather. Most of the established sites sit just off the A27 or in the villages to the east and north of Lewes, close enough for an evening in town but properly rural once you are back at the tent.

Sussex weather follows the same broad pattern as the rest of southern England: a changeable spring, a warm but not guaranteed-dry summer, and a real risk of the Downs turning wet, windy and muddy from October onwards, which is worth bearing in mind given how many visitors specifically want to combine camping with Bonfire Night in early November. Wild camping is not legally permitted anywhere in Sussex without landowner consent, South Downs National Park status notwithstanding, so visitors should stick to the region's licensed sites and farm campsites rather than pitching informally on the Downs. The best months for camping around Lewes are May to September, when the chalk grassland is at its driest and the long summer evenings make the most of the views from the higher sites; a well-equipped autumn stay timed around Bonfire Night is popular but should be booked early and packed for wind and rain.