The Gatehouse website record for Lewes Town Wall

In the civil parish of Lewes. In the historic county of Sussex (Modern Authority of East Sussex, 1974 county of East Sussex).

Lewes had earthwork defences in Saxon times. Stone wall built after 1266. Featureless western part of wall remains. Murage granted 1266 and 1334. PastScape records C10 burh but not walls.
The walls of the town ran north and south of the East Gate (situated some 100 yards west of Lewes Bridge) and then turned westward at the foot of the hill slope. It is probable that at an early date some responsibility for maintaining the town defences fell on the manors or military tenants of the barony. In 1275 Earl John de Warenne was said to have exacted £5 from each knight's fee in the honor of Lewes towards the cost of walling the town. This had probably happened in 1267, in which year the earl specifically released the Abbey of Hyde from all claims for walling the town due for their manors of Southease and Telscombe; and this may be connected with the royal grant of murage for three years made to the bailiffs and good men of Lewes in May 1266 at the request of the earl, possibly influenced by the ease with which the Barons had taken the town after the Battle of Lewes. Another royal grant of murage was made, for five years, in 1334. It is uncertain whether any stone wall existed on the east, where the river protected the approach. On the north the wall encloses an ancient earthwork, occupied by the churchyard of St. John-sub-Castro, and joins the castle defences, from which it climbs the hill to join the West Gate. On the south it takes a straight course, with one exit called Watergate, and turns, east of Keere Street, forming a facing to the Saxon earth wall on the south side of the West Gate. (VCH)

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is TQ415101

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 406490
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record. In particular 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website, or elsewhere.

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.