On 18 Aug 2018 at 9:25pm 30 something wrote:
Hi,
I'm planning to move to Lewes in a few months time with my young family. We currently live in the Midlands and I feel it's not for me (I'm from the south originally). Can't put my finger on it but I feel I'm in a bland cultural-nowheresville. Sometimes I think I'm looking out for it, but I do also think people are more materialistic (in a crass way) in the Midlands...
Also I have family and a couple of pals in Brighton so the choice of location isn't completely out the blue. I have this vague idea that the Lewes has a fairly broad-minded demographic and that it will have a good influence on how my children's outlook is characterised (long term). By the way, I'm not posh/ snooty, I just want to live somewhere where they there's one actual bookshop (!!). I also quite fancy a new chapter/adventure.
Happy to hear mixed / honest views... and also any info on the best areas. I was planning to look at roads around the town centre (like Western Road) first of all.
Thanks so much.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 9:36pm Another B and B lady wrote:
We enjoy living in Lewes and I’m sure you will too. However, posting on this forum is not the place to ask for any sensible comments. Please don’t take the inevitable barage of ludicrous comments that may follow too seriously!
On 18 Aug 2018 at 9:38pm Avoid wrote:
Lewes is currently experiencing drugs, beggars, travellers and thieves. Not to mention the normal born n bred chavs in landport. Seriously, why would you want to move to Lewes when you can get a much bigger house for the same price elsewhere in Sussex.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 9:42pm 30 something wrote:
Where would you recommend Avoid
Anywhere nice that's nearby? Shame to hear about this.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 9:56pm Mme B wrote:
I could have written exactly your post 40 years ago, and I have never regretted moving to Lewes from the Midlands. The town has its social problems, as has been mentioned above, but it is still a vibrant town with a great deal to offer. There are bookshops, a great number of activities, and a beautiful new cinema. What's not to like? Coming down from the Midlands, you may find prices rather high, though.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 10:05pm 30 something wrote:
Thank you Mme B - that's very encouraging 
On 18 Aug 2018 at 10:14pm Inxile wrote:
I have the opposite problem, in that I moved down to Lewes from the midlands 15 years ago and I still yearn to return.
I do love Lewes, but people are generally much warmer, friendlier and a lot funnier in the West Midlands, a very self deprecating lot.
Lewes is pretty much as good as it gets in the south east, people are really nice and I’d greatly miss the amount of live music in Brighton. But since I moved here the town has changed - lots of middle class types, who are all quite nice, but seem rather smug, self obsessed and don’t have a great deal of self awareness (especially the card carrying lefties with buy to lets - mutually exclusive imho)
30 Something, I’d be interested to know where you were based in The Midlands? I’m faintly offended by your description of a people I find to have a much greater awareness of the UK as a whole than those down south!
On 18 Aug 2018 at 10:25pm @Inxile wrote:
Well I'm faintly, no, actually, very offended by your description of us Southerners!
Sod off then!
On 18 Aug 2018 at 10:36pm 30 something wrote:
Haha.
Well I'm from Bucks originally and would get called a 'posh southerner' when I was at uni in the w.midlands. so I guess it's all relative!
@Inxile - agree, Midlands folk can be very funny and warm.
What I'm sort of referring to (not necessarily typical of Midlands) is the kind of people I notice around me who have perfectly clipped lawns, manically clean houses with big tv's and no books.. they seem a bit dead-eyed and sort of competitive (like that Harry Enfield sketch) like they have no 'bohemian' in them... I think maybe it's a 'new build executive homes' thing rather than necessarily regional...
I guess I have this idea that Lewes will be all farmers markets and yes, I guess a bit more liberal / earthy but with southern sensibilities... haha. Although life is what you make it I guess...
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:00pm Leftie wrote:
"especially the card carrying lefties with buy to lets - mutually exclusive imho"
I have no idea why anyone would think that multiple home ownership is a stereotypical description of a card carrying Leftie.
It's as strange as the right wing looney who claimed on this forum that Tony Blair was to blame for Brexit.
Halfwits!
Any way.
Lewes is lovely.
Brighton is great.
Move here before they turn it into Surrey.
Must dash, Wolves are on MOTD in a minute.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:07pm 30 something wrote:
That settles it then!
Thank you people of Lewes coming for a day trip in October to scout around and hope you all enjoy your 5th Nov.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:18pm Pedant wrote:
30 Something, Lewes is an awful place and I'd leave if i could afford to. It's divided between moronic and semi-fascist locals and liberal luvvie DFLs. The worst are the arty-farty self-employed 'creatives' with their pretend socialist but actual arrogant Thatcherite me first views. I'd avoid this place like the plague.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:23pm Inexile wrote:
“I have no idea why anyone would think that multiple home ownership is a stereotypical description of a card carrying Leftie.”
I merely meant that if you’re truly left wing, then multiple home ownership, isn’t really the right things to do.
Anyway, you’re quite right, Lewes is lovely and I do get 30 Something’s point about the Harry Enfield type midlanders
Amazingly, it was my foxes that turned over your Wolves today
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:28pm Dexter wrote:
Right. Back from the pub.
The country is a mess.
Most places outside London & the Home Counties are like a different country.
If Lewes isn't for you, where else would you want to be? Here's some suggestions.
Nigel Farage.. Germany
Nigel Lawson.. France
Rees Mogg.. Ireland
Me... maybe Orkney....
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:28pm Ex Pat wrote:
For f**** sake don't do it. I was born and bred in Lewes but I couldn't wait to get away from the wretched place. Now living a far superior life on the Gold Coast.
On 18 Aug 2018 at 11:34pm Dexter wrote:
Thanks Ex Pat, but if I had woken up on the Gold Coast on a Sunday morning and my first thought was to look at the Lewes Forum and belly ache; I would really have to think twice about the meaning of life.
Be happy!
On 19 Aug 2018 at 12:23am Jan wrote:
I be happy let you cum and meat me and I show your round. All good harted people and we all live a green life
On 19 Aug 2018 at 7:53am options wrote:
If you find Lewes not to your taste, I'd try Seaford or Eastbourne. NOT Brighton.
On 19 Aug 2018 at 8:32am Lovely lady legs wrote:
The UK is full of stunning countryside, beautiful towns and villages. Lewes is nothing special anymore. Litter, drug users, beggars, dfl tits, congestion, no decent shops for normal people, etc etc
On 19 Aug 2018 at 9:58am Ex bat wrote:
I moved to Lewes 3 years ago, from Brighton.
I've got to admit it's a bit of a let down. The traffic congestion is beyond what's normal. Sure, it's 2018, there are more cars on the road than ever and you expect heavy traffic pretty much anywhere in the south east, but the level of congestion leading in to Lewes and then in Lewes itself is horrendous. It's terrible all the time then gets worse at peak time. And tiny Lewes with its narrow roads just isn't built to be able to handle this much traffic.
It kills any atmosphere it might otherwise have. The a27 that leads in to Lewes is super horrendous, a new kind of hell that we've had to adjust to.
My mum came to visit when we moved here and had her purse stolen whilst we were in a shop in the high street.
I don't find it particularly friendly.
I don't understand why Lewes houses command so much money.
3 of my neighbours are moving, and all 3 are moving to Hailsham. Perhaps there's something in it.
On 19 Aug 2018 at 10:24am Come to Hailsham wrote:
Like Deja Vu. That's 4 sensible people including your neighbours
On 19 Aug 2018 at 12:16pm Stonemam wrote:
faschism is coming GOOD
On 19 Aug 2018 at 12:35pm Gus wrote:
In that case you had better learn how to spell it.
On 19 Aug 2018 at 4:11pm MG wrote:
@30 Something: Lewes is a great place to live, even if a bit on the expensive side. I agree with what Another B and B Lady wrote. We have our share of the same problems everywhere else has experienced since the financial crisis, but probably no worse than the rest. Traffic can be a problem, as can the parking wardens. It’s a great place to bring up kids. All the state schools are pretty good or better, there are great parks and green spaces and the best outdoor swimming pool in the country, and plenty of other activities. There’s a great intellectual (Sussex and Brighton universities being 3 miles away) and cultural, literary (some very fine poets, national journalists, and other writers live in the town), visual, and, especially, musical life (the influence of Glyndebourne being so close). There’s a very progressive football club, several active cricket clubs, a rugby club, and loads of other sporting organisations. Lewes has a farmer’s market twice a month, two good independent butchers, a local fishmonger, and plenty of places catering for vegetarians. Twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, we have a market stall selling good value vegetables, but we no longer have an independent greengrocer. There are some great pubs, where you can expect both good beer and intelligent conversation. Trains to London are scheduled about twice an hour (which the advocates of Hailsham cannot claim).
There is a tradition of independent thinking that goes back before Thomas Paine, and expresses itself in odd ways sometimes: if you can get your head around the idea of a place that has exploded an effigy of the Rev Ian Paisley for being a Papist you’ll fit in very well.
From our experience, in the Paddock Rd /New Rd area, the Pells area, and the Priory Street area, the communities are friendly. Western Rd is a bit away from the town centre (which the planners have decreed is now the “Town Square” in the Cliffe), but currently houses there are more reasonably priced than some other parts. Try to make sure you are well about sea level, as Lewes has flooded seriously a couple of times in my lifetime (1960 and 2000)
Ignore some of the weirder comment on this thread. The forum acts as a cheaper alternative to care in the community for many of its contributors. As a leftie myself I’ve never met anyone in Lewes with a buy-to-let. The comment on “chavs in Landport” is pure snobbery based on the fact pre- right-to-buy Landport was a council estate.
One thing I would say is, if you do move to Lewes, add your input to things the way we do them, rather than try to ban them or make them into the way things were done where you moved away from. That is the source of most of the rancour against DFLs (Down From Londons).
On 19 Aug 2018 at 4:51pm Erm wrote:
I moved down from London some years ago and Lewes has changed a lot, mostly not in a good way for some of the reasons already given. It's over-priced and not as interesting as when I first arrived. There's a sizeable proportion of the locals up their own a**es and I've been genuinely shocked by some of their extreme and ignorant views. However, although a dfl myself, I have to also agree that there equal amounts of heinous outsiders who move in and want to take over or change things - that `middle-class sense of entitlement' just wafts off them - and gives all dfls a bad name and is frankly embarrasing.
On 19 Aug 2018 at 9:49pm Bob wrote:
Yep you can get the train to Victoria, and stand all the way to East Croydon Great ain't it !!! And that's off peak.
On 19 Aug 2018 at 10:13pm 30 something wrote:
Thanks so much for your time all - definitely food for thought! Love the insights on how independent-spirited Lewes is.. ! Thanks again
On 19 Aug 2018 at 10:38pm Loadsamoney wrote:
Lewes is a lovely place to live if you can afford it. If you’re commuting to London or Brighton best to be walking distance to the station. Parking in Lewes is horrendous. The Neville has good family homes for only half a million quid. If you’re working locally do consider one of the local villages - Barcombe, Ringmer offer much more value for money and are friendly welcoming places. I lived in Lewes in the early 2000’s when locals could afford houses and the DFL brigade weren’t so prevalent. Miss those times, and while it’s still a great place to be with a lot going on locally it has a lot of problems. People friendly but no more than anywhere else IMO.
On 20 Aug 2018 at 7:33am 30 something wrote:
Wow @Loadsamoney - thank you! I just had a quick look on rightmove, significantly different in price... very interesting.
On 20 Aug 2018 at 4:11pm Nevill was wrote:
a council estate and Prison Officers accommodation. Then came Thatcher.
On 20 Aug 2018 at 6:21pm @Loadsamoney wrote:
"I lived in Lewes in the early 2000’s when locals could afford houses and the DFL brigade weren’t so prevalent." - you mean before the greedy, local `born n breds' made a killing selling their properties to outsiders and thereby preventing their offspring from being able to afford to stay in Lewes?
On 20 Aug 2018 at 10:36pm Local wrote:
There are some very fat people here, at least one of which has posted on this thread. There are some very smug people here, at least one of which has posted on this thread. There are some very stupid people here, at least one of which has posted on this thread.
Some of the biggest lefties here are the biggest private landlords, so you will understand that there are a lot of hypocritical people here too.
On 21 Aug 2018 at 8:40pm Nevill Lady wrote:
Not all Nevill was council. South Way predated the rest of the estate with the original properties (the detached ones) being built in the late 1920s. Then post-war it all took off and the rest of the estate came into being.
If you are.moving to Lewes do consider Nevill, lived here all my life.