A short distance along High Street stands St. Michael’s Church, which has one of the three curious round towers for which the valley of the Ouse is famous.  The style of the tower is Norman, but the body of the church is of later dates.  Here are some fine brasses; one is supposed to commemorate a de Warenne who died about 1380; another is to John Bradford, rector, dated 1457.  The monument to Sir Nicholas Pelham (1559) has an oft-quoted punning verse—­

  “What time the French sought to have sacked Sea-Foord
  This Pelham did repel-em back aboord.”

St. Anne’s Church is nearly a quarter of a mile farther on.  The style is Transitional.  There are several interesting items, including a very fine and ancient font of a “basket” pattern.  Note the uncommon appearance of the capitals on the south side pillars, an ancient tomb in the chancel wall, and, not least, the doorway with Norman moulding.  There is in this church a window in memory of Lower, a fitting tribute to the historian of Sussex, but his best memorial will always be that work that is still the basis of most writings on the past of the county.

The road continues to the Battlefield and Mount Harry, but to explore the lower portion of the town a return must be made to High Street.  At the corner of Bull Lane, marked by a memorial tablet and with a queer carved demon upon its front is Tom Paine’s house.  Note the unusual milestone on a house front opposite Keere Street, down which turning is presently passed (on the left) Southover House (1572), a good example of Elizabethan architecture.  Keere Street has another remnant of the past in its centre gutter, the usual method of draining the street in medieval times, but now very seldom seen except in the City of London.

At the foot of the street is the (probably dry) bed of the Winterbourne, so called because, like other streams of the chalk country, it flows at intermittent times.  A short distance farther, to the right, and just past St. John’s Church, will be found the entrance to the space once occupied by the first Priory of the Cluniacs in England.

[Illustration:  St. Anne’s church, Lewes.]

Founded in 1078 by William de Warenne and his wife Gundrada and dedicated to St. Pancras, the Priory was always closely allied with the parent house on the continent.  At the Dissolution more than the usual vandalism seems to have been observed and Cromwell’s creatures must have vented some personal spite against the monks in their wholesale demolition of the buildings.  A mound to the north-east is supposed to be the site of a calvary, and until quite recently a “colombarium” or dovecote was allowed to stand which contained homes for over three thousand birds.