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LEWES 227 |
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and a fjord extended some miles above the capital. To guard the channel at the narrowest place was thrown up the camp which supplied the site and half the name of the Church of St. John-sub-Castro. A modern tablet on the houses of " The Fosse " calls it Roman, but this is a mere guess. There can be little doubt that the original camp was much earlier, and there is no real evidence that Lewes was ever a Roman station at all. The Fabian Chronicle tells us that in the 21st year of Alfred the Danes constructed a " castel " near the river which was shortly " bette down to the ground." If this were so it was probably a defence of timber and earth on the same site, but the evidence is late and unsatisfactory ; the Chronicle was only published in 1516, three years after the death of Robert Fabyan, its author. From the Burghal Hidage (p. 116) we know that about 920 there was a Saxon burh at Lewes. This has usually been placed on the site of the Norman castle, but on the whole it seems at least equally probable (as Hadrian Allcrof t suggests) that it also was in the older position, and that William of Warenne chose an entirely new site for his stronghold.
The " little ruined church overgrown with briars " of Camden (St. John-sub-Castro) is replaced by a modern building quite uninteresting except for two Saxon doorways. One is very curious as having three shafts in the same plane each side and round the arch, simple string for abacus or capital ; the other has round the stones of the arch the inscription—
CLAUDITUR HIC MILES, DANORUM REGIA PROLES ; MANGNUS NOME EI, MANGNE NOTA PGENIEI DEPONENS MANGNUM, SB MORIBUS INDUIT AGNUM, EPETE P VITA, FIT PARWLUS ARNAOORITA. |
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