[7] The addition of the <-s> suffix seems to have been part of a broader trend of Anglo-Norman scribes pluralising Anglo-Saxon place-names (a famous example being their rendering of Lunden as Londres, hence the modern French name for London).

He suggested that the name Læwe instead derives from the rare Old English word lǣw ("wound, incision"), and reflects the fact that from the top of School Hill Lewes overlooks the narrow, steep-sided "gash" where the River Ouse cuts through the line of the South Downs.

[12] A third possibility has been advanced by Richard Coates, who has argued that Læwe derives from lexowia, an Old English word meaning "hillside, slope" (of which there is no shortage in the Lewes area).

[13] The immense strategic value of the site, which is able to command traffic between the Channel coast and the Sussex interior, was recognised as early as the Iron Age, when a hill-fort was built on Mount Caburn, the steep-sided hill that overlooks the Ouse (and the modern town of Lewes) from the east.

[20] Information about Lewes becomes much more plentiful from the reign of Alfred the Great onward, as it was one of the towns which he fortified as part of the network of burhs he established in response to the Viking raids.

De Warenne constructed Lewes Castle within the walls of the Saxon burh, while his wife Gundreda founded the Priory of St Pancras, a Cluniac monastic house, in about 1081.

Henry marched out to fight de Montfort, leading to a pitched battle on the hills above the town (roughly in the area of modern Landport Bottom).

The king's son Prince Edward, commanding the right wing of the royal army, succeeded in driving off some of the baronial forces, but he got carried away with the pursuit, which took him as far as Offham.

Fitzalan preferred to reside at Arundel Castle rather than at Lewes, and the town therefore lost the prestige and economic advantages associated with being the seat of an important magnate.

Furthermore, after the main branch of the Fitzalan family died out in 1439, the Rape of Lewes was subsequently partitioned between the three sororal nephews of the last earl, namely John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Edward Neville, 3rd Baron Bergavenny, and Edmund Lenthall.

As a result of this dismemberment the district became even more neglected by its lords, although feudal politics was starting to become less important anyway due to the centralising reforms of the Yorkist and Tudor kings.

[25] The English Reformation was begun by one of these Tudor monarchs, Henry VIII, and as part of this process the monasteries of England were dissolved; Lewes Priory was consequently demolished in 1538 and its property seized by the Crown.

[27] Lewesian politics was dominated by a strongly Puritan faction in the reign of Charles I, and during the English Civil War it was one of the most important Parliamentarian strongholds in Sussex.

It had always been one of the principal market towns of Sussex, as well as an important port, and by the end of the Georgian era it also had well-developed textiles, iron, brewing, and shipbuilding industries.

For much of the Middle Ages the town was run by a closed aristocratic organisation known as the "Fellowship of the Twelve", which was gradually eclipsed by a body known as the jury in the seventeenth century, presided over by a constable.

[36][37] In 1890, the town council acquired the former Star Inn at 189 High Street, parts of which date back to the fourteenth century, and the adjoining corn exchange.

The High Street, and earliest settlement, occupies the west bank, climbing steeply up from the bridge taking its ancient route along the ridge; the summit on that side, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) distant is known as Mount Harry.

They now include the more modern housing estates of Wallands, South Malling (the west part of which is a previously separate village with a church dedicated to St Michael), Nevill, Lansdown and Cranedown on the Kingston Road.

The ancient street pattern survives extensively as do a high proportion of the medieval building plots and oak framed houses, albeit often masked with later facades.

[75] With Eric Gill's move to Ditchling, the artistic community there gave rise to other sculptors in the Lewes district such as his nephew John Skelton and Joseph Cribb.

[76] Eric Gill and Jacob Epstein conceived a great scheme for doing some colossal figures together around 1910 for a modern Stonehenge on 6 acres of land at Asheham House, Beddingham, south-east of Lewes.

Starfish Youth Music[122] is based at Priory School and the young bands who take part regularly perform in local venues such as the Paddock and the All Saints' Centre.

Union Music Store based in Lewes has become a centre for modern folk, country and Americana, both promoting and hosting live gigs, and recording and producing local musicians.

Possibly the earliest substantial reference in fiction is in The Wanderer: Or, Female Difficulties, an 1814 novel by Fanny Burney, in which the heroine spends time in Lewes and Brighton.

Three novels by William Nicholson (writer) – The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life, All the Hopeful Lovers and Golden Hour – are based in Lewes and surrounding villages.

"[145] Other writers to have set works of fiction in Lewes include Andrew Soutar, Judith Glover, and primatologist Alison Jolly who wrote a series of books for children.

[150] In December 2018 a monthly lifestyle publication Town & County Magazine was launched, with coverage of local life, history, and culture, and celebrity interviews, across Lewes district as well as Alfriston & Ditchling.

The club runs various events including the Christmas Concert in December each year with the LGB Brass and the annual 'International 'Toad-in-the-Hole' Competition' and holds street collections to raise funds so as to assist people and organisations in and around Lewes.

[citation needed] The sciences and natural enquiry are represented by Gideon Mantell who is credited with the first discovery and identification of fossilised dinosaur (iguanodon) teeth.

During the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland several prominent figures involved in it were in Lewes Prison, including Éamon de Valera (1882–1975); Thomas Ashe (1885–1917); Frank Lawless (1871–1922); and Harry Boland (1887–1922).