London 2026: Part 7: Lewes and Seaford

This is part 7 of a series.  1 more to come.  See earlier date to find the start.

On many of our trips to London we have explored places outside of the capital, usually on day trips by rail.  This time was no exception, with a visit to Rochester followed the next week by a trip to Lewes.  From East Croydon Lewes can be reached by one train, making it a very convenient day trip.  We have once visited Brighton, so we continued our exploration of the south of England today.

The train emerges from a short tunnel before arriving at the platform, essentially passing beneath the town and its castle.  The station is one of my favourites in the world.  I stop here often in my train sim world game, and the real thing isn't much different.  There are 5 platforms split into a 'Y' junction, with trains heading to London Victoria (ours), Brighton, Seaford, Eastbourne and Hastings.

 

Why did we choose Lewes?  I wanted to see the real station.  In addition there is a castle, the ruins of a priory, some fine pubs, a worthwhile High Street and, for Deb, a visit to a cinema that has shown her films before as part of the Women Over 50 Film Festival.  The Depot Cinema sits just outside the station.  It has a three screen cinema and a cafe and bar, all in a lovely indoor/outdoor setting.  Someday we may get to visit when one of Deb's films is showing here.

 

Train Sim overview of Lewes rail station.  That's me driving a classic passenger excursion.  In real life we entered from the first track on the right, from London. 

 

Lewes Station from our arrival platform.

 

The station is architecturally wonky in a very fun way.  There is a cafe at platform level, a real beauty, and another one up top outside the ticket area. 

 

Part of the beautiful gardens at Lewes Station.  This is the platform Brighton passengers reach. 

  

There is some fine hillside walking to be done just outside of town. 

 

A famous film maker stands outside The Depot Cinema. 

 

We mostly headed towards the castle, along with a large grouping of marching school children.  We spent over an hour at the well positioned castle.  Lewes is built on a steep hill, with the castle at the very top (and the station at the very bottom).  There are two keeps to climb, both offering outstanding views of the surrounding landscape.  Far off to the southwest one can glimpse the sea.  We began by watching a short film about the history of Lewes, then we entered the castle proper for a self guided tour.  As in Rochester, there were a lot of stairs to climb; two separate keeps no less.  The day was sunny and mild and without the roaring winds we had encountered in Rochester.  Thus we were able to stay aloft for longer.  The gift shop had some very lovely things, including a brightly coloured pencil and matching eraser.  I left impressed with the whole experience.

 

 Plan of castle grounds.

 

A plan of an early version of the castle. 

 

Some people live with a castle in their backyard.

 

The Barbican, or entrance gate. We got to climb onto it's roof.

 

 

View of the high south tower from our ascent of the Barbican. 

 

View east from the Barbican. 

 

View back towards the Barbican as we climb towards the south and west towers.

  

Beneath the two high towers is a large oval space with trees and lawn and benches.  From here one can climb the to the highest point in Lewes.  Up we go! 

 

On the way up. 

 

Top of the world.

 

Looking down at St. Michael's.

 

Hills east of Lewes.  Note the trail heading up.  We hope to walk this path in the autumn.

 

View back to the station.  Note the train and wonky roof at the top.

 

Looking down at the Barbican. 

  

By now we'd worked up quite a thirst, so we headed down to where the peasants dwelt in search of a nearby pub. The Brewers Arms is a beautiful pub and we shared half pints of Harvey's Best Bitter (Harvey's is brewed in Lewes) and Thistly Cross cider from the cask.  It was a perfect ending to our exploration of Lewes Castle.  We now have several fine castles checked off on our bucket list. 

 

St Michael's, from street level this time.

 

Brewers Arms, a welcoming and very comfortable pub.

 

Sanctuary.

One of many interesting shops on the High Street. 

 

While at the pub we searched online for our next pub.  We had many to choose from!  We headed down the High Street, which drops steeply to the River Ouse, crossing it on a fine old bridge near Harvey's Brewery.  They had a tap room, but as it offered nothing dark we didn't stop in.  Next time.  We found a bakery with vegan sausage rolls, sharing one on our way to the next pub, and a second one on our way back.  Delicious.  East Croydon Station also had a bakery with some as well, which Deb had for breakfast nearly every morning.

 

Map of Lewes.  The castle is in centre top, with the high Street beneath.
 

 We soon arrived at the next pub, Gardener's Arms.  We tried three half pints and scored high with two of them.  The disappointing one was Langham Dark Mild by Downlands Brewery.  I had ordered a feisty sounding ale, but as it was pulled the cask ran dry.  However, Devil's Dyke Ruby Red Porter became an instant classic, as did Black Dragon Cider.  The pub itself was small and a bit dowdy, but the ale selection was quite good.

 

Down the High Street we go.

 

Harvey's Brewery, along the Ouse River. We will stop in on our next visit.

 

Gardener's Arms.  The Death or Glory ran out on me, but the porter was fantastic.

 

We were able to return to the rail station without reclimbing the hill.  We followed roads around the hill at river level  and came across All Saints Church and Cemetery.  We spent some time exploring the yard, which was steeped in atmosphere and very old graves.  This would be our final site in Lewes, as we were heading to the seashore.  Having glimpsed the sea from the battlements of the castle, it would have been a shame to have missed out on a brief visit.  Our next destination was Seaford. 

 

Unused gate at All Saints.

 

All Saints churchyard.

 

All Saints churchyard.
 

 I just happen to drive trains to Seaford from Lewes and Brighton, so I knew the route and how close the ocean was.  The little station at the end of the branch line also boasted a pub.  While we didn't end up drinking there, we did enjoy coffee.  The pub is located in the old station waiting room, but only served draft beer.  It is called Steamworks and boasted some fine travel posters on the walls.

 

It is a six minute walk from the station to the pebbly beach, but we could view the sea from the train windows as we approached.  It is a very short ride, about 20 minutes from Lewes.  That meant that we were only about 65 minutes from our home station in East Croydon.  It seemed like another world.  It was a beautiful day to come down to seaside.  Deb recorded sounds of the waves washing up on shore.  Later, back at Lewes Station while waiting for our train home she recorded crows in a nearby tree.  Earlier in the journey she had recorded trains speeding past us from a suburban station, some going up to 100 mph.  So we came home with more than just memories and photos.

 

Seaford Beach.  In the distance a trail climbs up Seven Sisters.

 

Opposite direction, now looking towards Brighton. 

 

Seaford Beach, up close. 

 

Steamworks Pub is in the old waiting room at Seaford Station.

 

We had coffee only today, though they had a lot of draft ale.

 

The pub had a lot of classic travel posters of local areas. 

 

We popped in to this pub in Seaford, greatly enjoying half pints of Longman's Best Bitter and Lilley's Mango Cider.

St. Leonard's Church, Seaford.  That might be the time back home, but not in Seaford.  It was getting late and we were getting tired.

 

Seaford is at the end of a branch line from Lewes.  We are awaiting our train back to Lewes. 

 

Our platform home towards East Croydon from Lewes.  We left the Seaford train and changed platforms.

 

A closer view of photo above showing the tunnel beneath Lewes and its castle. 

 

to be continued....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

London 2026: Part 6--Capital Ring Segment 11

 This is part 6 of a series...

Though we try our best to stay on the path, the Capital Ring and London Loop are full of places where mistakes are easily made.  Today's mistake was a huge one, but only about 30% our fault.  Signage had been good so far on our walks, but today a very important intersection was not signed and instead of turning right we marched straight on, ending up miles out of our way.  Such are the hazards of walking London in a big circle.  Sometimes one marches straight on instead of arcing.  Thus it took us two days instead of one to finish Capital Ring Segment 11.

 

By now we were old hands at using Thameslink trains to get quickly from East Croydon, deep in the south of London, to our walk far to the north.  We probably did this much faster than a car could have done it, once we knew the ropes.  We had ended the last segment at Hendon Station, so we were heading there again this morning (see the actual itinerary of our trip at the bottom of part 1 of this blog series).  That meant taking a train that passed through London Bridge Station, then crossing the Thames at Blackfriars Station, then on to West Hampstead Station and finally to Hendon.

 

Our northbound train crosses the Thames River at Blackfriars Station before heading underground until the far northern suburbs are reached.  The Shard towers over the area around London Bridge Station. 

 

Leaving the station we retraced our steps through a remarkable uninteresting High Street before turning east along a city road.  Within a mile we came to a short detour that led us to a major shopping centre, Brent Cross, where morning tea and rest rooms awaited us.  We would have preferred a coffee shop near the station, but nothing near there tempted us.  Leaving the shopping centre we returned to our city street and continued on to our first park of the day.  We walked the extreme south end of large Hendon Park, then back onto city streets until we reached Brent Park.  This was a riverside park, and we would end up following it for far too long.

 

Crossing Tube tracks on the Capital Ring.

 

West entrance to Brent Park, on a riverside ramble.

 

Wild garlic provided a unique sensory experience along this part of the trail.

 

We entered Brent Park at the bottom of this trail map.  See the "You are here" marking?  See the branch river that leads to Hampstead Garden Suburb?  That was the turn off we missed, thanks to a missing route sign on the trail.  We marched all the way up to Whetstone instead, then had to go to Mill Hill to find a tube station to get us back on track.  It was a low point of the walk, realizing we were several miles off our path.

 

There was a silver lining in our mistake.  We came across the Dollis Viaduct, something we would have missed otherwise.  It was rather impressive, and carried Tube trains over the Dollis River and a busy road.

  

The Dollis Viaduct.  We ended up about half a mile from Mill Hill Station, a small branch of the Northern Line.  We hoofed it to the station, finding a large grocery store along the way.  We stopped for some vegan yogurt and a ten minute sit down. 

 

Walking left to right we began at Hendon Station, detouring near bottom to a large shopping mall.  We mistakenly kept walking north on the river path, missing our turn (shown corrected by us in the 3 o'clock position.  We ended up at Mill Hill instead of East Finchley.
 

 We eventually made it to Mill Hill Broadway Station and were soon on our way to the correct stop.  We were supposed to have walked to East Finchley Station, but had badly messed up.  Just around the corner from the correct station we settled in to the While Lion to cry in our beer (Sharps Doom Bar).  This was quite a lovely pub just beneath a train bridge and separated by it from a lively High Street.  We finally figured out where we had gone wrong, now determined to make it right.  We decided to walk the missed part of the route from the station, thus doing it in reverse.

 

This should have been our halfway stop for today.  It became the only pub visited today. 

 

We managed to walk the missed part, ending up at a small playground where our mistake had been made.  It wasn't a long walk to fix the mistake, less than 3 miles.  Once complete we headed to a nearby bus stop.  It was near rush hour and traffic was heavy, the bus slow.  The driver was an Arabic lady, very friendly and obviously well liked by the regulars, who stopped to chat with her when getting on or off.  After a long ride we made it to New Southgate Station, a Thameslink stop, and were soon on our way home by fast train.

 

We walked the corrected version of Segment 11 from right to left, after taking the train down to East Finchley Station back towards our missed turn.  Once we had joined up with the main path we backtracked a short distance to a bus stop, to wherever it would take us.  We ended up at New Southgate Station.  From there it was an easy journey home. 

 

The next day was to be another out of town trip (see next entry), but the day after that we headed back north to complete Segment 11 of the Capital Ring.  We arrived at East Finchley Station again, fresh and ready to walk.  We explored the busy neighbourhood a little bit, then headed out into the wild woods of London!  Our final destination today was Highgate Station, after exploring Highgate Wood and Queenswood.  These are two of our favourite parks in London and we hadn't visited in many years.  Because we'd done more than half of the walk yesterday we were able to slow our pace and really enjoy the forests.  Both parks had cafes and we stopped at each.  The one in Queenswood had been visited many years ago, on a magical damp and dreary day.  This forest is the scene of a big event in my second Dulwich horror novel, as well as the pub at the end of today's walk, the Woodman.

 

The completion of Segment 11 took us through some of London's oldest and most impressive woodlands.  We ended up at a pub near Highgate Station. 

 

We broke from the official path through the woods, choosing to explore a wider area of the forests than we would have if we had completed the walk yesterday.  Queenswood has some serious hills to climb, and the final pull up to our finishing pub had one as well.  Highgate Station is only a few steps away from the pub, so we headed for central London after our refreshment stop.  Ring Segment 11 is a real corker of a walk, one of the best so far!

 

An archer draws his bow atop East Finchley Station, where we had left off our walk from two days ago.  He is aiming towards Highgate Station, our goal later today.

 

Deb stands outside an historic theatre near East Finchley Station.  This was a very cool area and we explored a bit before resuming our walk.  They were showing first run movies and art house ones.

 

This little park was well used and offered washrooms and a small cafe.

 

Highgate Wood is enormous.  We visited its centrally located cafe.

 

Highgate Wood.

Highgate Wood. 

 

 

Highgate Wood.

 

Highgate Wood Cafe.

 

Our ultimate destination is Woolwich Foot Tunnel, when we will have completed the Ring.  4 more segments to go.

 

Highgate Wood. 

 

Another view of our route through Highgate Wood (left) and Queenswood, above.  Our route ended at the Woodman Pub.

 

Queenswood Cafe, a truly magical place.  We sat alone in the circular room beneath the tower, windows shown.

 

View from our table looking back outside.  The cafe boasts an organic garden and beautiful outside seating areas.  It was coffee time!
 

 

Our cafe bench had beautiful square pillows.

 

There was a lot of wood in Queenswood.

 

The Woodman Pub, Highgate, the end of our walk.  The two ladies are sitting at the exact table where Reema and the wood witch go after Allie mysteriously disappears.

 

The Woodman, Highgate.  We ended up having Brixton Pale Ale on handpull, and more Jubal Peach Session on draft. 

 

The clock was winding down.  It was Thursday afternoon and we would be up very early on Saturday to catch our flight home.  There were two big stops in central London that we had put off till near the end of the trip, and it was now time to visit.  Standford's Book Shop specializes in travel books and maps, and is my favourite bookstore in the entire universe.  However, they have moved.  We did not know this.  We found the old store, then had to use phone data to locate the new place.  Luckily it wasn't very far away.  The nearest Tube stop is now Covent Garden.  I must remember this.  We had coffee at the store cafe and browsed happily for a long time.  Deb bought a book about octopus research, and I, of course, bought maps.  How can we be married?

 

After the book shop we headed towards Farringdon Station and to a new pub for us.  I was seriously in the mood for some Belgian Ale, and The Dovetail was a serious place to go.  They had everything Belgian on tap and in bottles.  We snagged a table just before rush hour and ended up splitting three incredible half pints of Westamalle Trappist Dubbel, the absolute best, Delirium Tremens, the absolute absolute best, and a lesser but delicious Brugse Zoot.  We also split an entree, a dish of vegan Moules, described thusly on the menu: Roasted button mushrooms in a nori infused white wine and vegan cream sauce served with frites & bread.  Deb died during the meal and went to vegan food heaven.  It was certainly the best thing we ate while in London.

 

Finest beer in the world supplied by the Dovetail, London. 

 

We had a big day ahead of us tomorrow, so after rush hour was safely gone we returned to Farringdon Station and caught one train all the way home.  the only way to go, especially after drinking Belgian ales.

 

to be continued...