London to Lewes Way London to Lewes Way The London to Lewes Way is a long Roman road between Watling Street at Peckham and Lewes in Sussex. The road passes through Beckenham and West Wickham, then crosses the North Downs above Titsey, on the county boundary between Surrey and Kent, and is overlain by Edenbridge High Street. The road continues on this alignment onto the high ground of Ashdown Forest, where the more grassy vegetation on the silted up outer ditches contrasts very clearly with surrounding heather in aerial photographs, then descends through Piltdown to Lewes, linking with the Sussex Greensand Way at Barcombe
Lewes of the area include the Glyndebourne festival, the Lewes Bonfire and the Lewes Pound. Archaeological evidence points to prehistoric dwellers in the area. Scholars think that the Roman settlement of "Mutuantonis" was here, as quantities of artefacts have been discovered in the area. The Saxons built a castle, having first constructed its motte as a defensive point over the river; they gave the town its name. After the Norman invasion, William the Conqueror rewarded William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, with the Rape of Lewes, a swathe of land along the River Ouse from the coast to the Surrey