Lewes : Anne of Cleves House

As I’m sure most of you know, Anne of Cleves was the fourth  (and probably the luckiest) wife of England’s King Henry VIII ... but not for long. It seems that the woman who arrived in England in December 1539 was not as attractive to Henry as he had expected from Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait and, although the marriage did go ahead, it was not consummated and was annulled after just 6 months, in July 1540.

Anne was the daughter of a German duke and couldn’t just be sent packing, so Henry was obliged to bestow upon her a generous settlement of money and property. As well as Richmond Palace and Hever Castle, Anne was also gifted a house in Lewes, East Sussex and, though it’s believed she never even visited the house, let alone lived there, the property is now a museum named Anne of Cleves House.

Despite Anne’s absence from the house, it is actually a fascinating place to visit as it’s an excellent example of a grand Wealden hall house, a 15th-century timber-framed construction, built upon the remains of a 13th-century structure.

As a signboard in the house explains:

Wealden hall houses were expensive both in style and technique to build. Built of locally available materials the house is timber framed with a tile and stone roof. The existing original front elevation is also of stone and flint.
Hall houses had a large central hall with first floor rooms that jetted over the front of the building. At each end of the hall were bays or rooms. These bays included service and store rooms at one end and a parlour at the other. ...
Anne of Cleves House was built on a grander scale than a typical hall house and was designed to impress. The house was set within large gardens and orchard and had stables, farm buildings and a malthouse.

The large, open first-floor room is furnished as it would have been in Anne’s time, with beautifully carved furnishings, including chests and a four-poster bed. And you can easily see how the building was constructed, with wattle and daub walls and massive wooden beams.

Though it’s possible the kitchen would originally have been in a separate building to guard against accidental fires, a room on a lower level has been furnished as a kitchen would have been in the 15th century.

The property is managed by the Sussex Archaeological Society, which has made use of additional space in the basement to house an exhibition about the Wealden iron-making industry, and an upper room houses interesting items and artefacts from Lewes’s more recent past. Why there’s even a cafe for tea, coffee and rather scrumptious cakes!

East Sussex: a little cuckoo

I’ve just returned from a short holiday, staying with my friend Jill in East Sussex. It was a wonderful few days of walking and talking, delicious food and excellent company, with visits to some of the local scenic attractions.

When I arrived late Monday afternoon, after 3½ hours in a bus from Cardiff to London, followed by another 3 hours and two trains making my way south during the Southern Rail strike, I was in desperate need of some fresh air and exercise so we had an early dinner and headed out for a wander.

Jill lives very near part of the Cuckoo Trail (a former railway line, see more here) so we followed that for part of our walk and also meandered along a local footpath that took us near some wonderful old buildings – barn conversions; a rather posh old house with its own moat; an old mill now converted to a house. 

We  also walked through the delightful and extremely picturesque little village of Hellingly, with its old church surrounded by a graveyard-come-village green, edged by lovely old houses.

The architecture in this area is simply stunning: the steep ski-slope-shaped rooves clad in lichen-covered terracotta tiles, the rustic red brick, the traditional exposed timber framing, the flint-encrusted stone walls.... These are just a few photos from our evening stroll.