East Is East

So far on our peregrinations from Portslade we’ve headed west to explore sites in West Sussex. Today, we headed east with two destinations in mind: Michelham Priory & Gardens, and the Anne of Cleves House museum in Lewes.

There wasn’t any hurry to leave as the priory doesn’t open until 10:30. We set out towards Upper Dicker (fnarr!) and Sattie gave us an arrival time of 10:23, so we (and a few other people) were milling around outside at opening time. 10:30 passed…then 10:31. In fact, it wasn’t until 10:35 (I know!) that the door was opened and we were able to effect an ingress. Clearly they live on country time here.

Thou shall not pass!

Inside the house there were information leaflets and exhibitions, but even more information was provided by the two guides who helped us and explained everything about the priory, its inception in the 13^th century, its uses and misuses – one prior had slackened the rules to allow bad behaviour, such as chatting during meals and fornication with local villagers. It wasn’t made clear which of these was considered the worse sin. The house was extended from its original size during the Tudor period, then extensively remodelled and updated in the late 19^th century. Some of the renos were a bit unsympathetic – the original huge arched window was cut in half by having a new floor level inserted into the building, and the arch is now completely indoors.

Original window arch

The guide demonstrated the weight-driven spit in the kitchen, which worked through a complicated set of gears. Early kitchen gadgets! Older folk probably thought it was the work of the devil.

We were also shown the inside of a cast iron strong box, used for storing important documents and valuables. It even had a dummy keyhole on the front to fool any would-be peterman, with the actual keyhole cunningly hidden. The intricate internal mechanism is shown:

After the dissolution of the monasteries the priory passed into private hands. In the 20^th century it was used for various purposes, including as a home for evacuees from the East End during the Blitz, and then as billets for Canadian officers, then ATS and Home Guard. Finally it was bought by one Mrs. Hotblack, who then gifted it to the Sussex Archaeological Society to be preserved for posterity.

We were promised a working water mill, but it's not working at the moment, as the river has silted up. It hasn’t been dredged for three years by the Environment Agency, because teh covids*, apparently.

We lunched in the shade of a tree, again on pre-packed sammies, then explored the rest of the gardens and grounds. These include a Physick Garden, a great barn, and a working forge.

We drove on from there to the Anne of Cleves House Museum in Lewes. We put the directions into Sattie, and she took us there. Unfortunately, it's on an ordinary street in Lewes, and there’s no car park! So we then searched for nearby parking, ended up in Lewes CBD, and had to walk 15 minutes to the house. There, we heard about the history of the house, and how it came into Anne Of Cleves’ possession. It doesn’t appear that she actually set foot inside the place, it was simply part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII. As, indeed, was Michelham Priory, although no mention was made of that during our tour there.

The house, from the garden

We toured the rooms including the grand bedroom, which contained a bed that Anne of Cleves never slept in. 

OK, that’s enough historicalness for one day. A quick trip to Waitrose, conveniently located next to the carpark, and we headed back home.

 

* Accepted spelling of this disease