 Hello, thank you for joining me. I'm in the beautiful Sussex town of Lewis today and we've come here to have a look at the ruins of Lewis Priory. Now this is Trinity Church It's not actually part of the priory, but the reason I'm starting the video here Is because there is a small section of the priory on this side of the railway. I must say this side of the railway You'll see what I mean. Most of it is the other side of the railway because the railway has literally dissected the priory. But we start here This fragmentary wall is just here. Around here is the gatehouse. So I quite like to start a ruined Abbey and Priory video. So there we are. That is the remains of the Cluniac Priory. You can just see where the arch would have been. It's sort of been filled in a bit. And then that's possibly built out of some of the buildings. What we'll do, we'll quickly go round behind it. As if we were going into the priory. Now I've got to turn around, head back to the railway station to cross the road. Now this was the first Cluniac Priory in Great Britain. And it was founded by a monk from Cluna. It's not quite Cluniac, but it's coming on screen now. A town in France. That's where the monks came from. They founded the first Cluniac Priory in Britain. You can't really see much of the back of the gatehouse. But we would have effectively... This would have probably been a building. It had probably gone through there. And these buildings here is priory terrace. So imagine heading that way into the priory. Now like I said, the railway dissects the priory, which we'll get on to later. So the first Cluniac Priory in Great Britain. It was once a very, very large church. Supposedly larger Chichester Cathedral. Let me just let you have a look at the Trinity Church in Southover. Unfortunately that wasn't open. Otherwise it would have probably gone and had a look. Lovely whole mockery there. Now it's interesting this path takes us round here to a bit more graveyard. But I don't think we can actually get anywhere beyond here. It just sort of goes into other houses. So that's the back of Priory Terrace. See the South Downs over there? The rest of the ruins are over there. That line of trees would mark where the railway is. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go back to the station and we'll find our way into the priory to see the rest of the ruins. So although this isn't planned to be a train video, that is quite obviously the railway station. You can see a class 313. That's some of the oldest EMUs in Great Britain. I'm not going to have a ride on one there later because the actual reason I've come down to Lewis today is to see some class 50s which are on a rail talk. I've got just over an hour so I thought I'd have a look at the priories while I wait. If you want to see class 50s, have a look at the link on screen now. That video will be completely separate to this. Just point up over there is Lewis Castle. Again a video for another day. I'm just making a quick stop in Lewis. So that's the railway station. You can also see a fielding platform again. We'll have to do a video on the cuckoo line which ran north from here. Or was it the cuckoo line? No, it wasn't. It was the line that went up towards Uckfield. The cuckoo line was the line from Eridge down to Polgate. I'm just across the road and when I've got the cuckoo line I'm going to go down there. That'll take us into the priory park and that's where we should be able to go and explore the ruins of the priory. Now this is one of those videos where I have not seen the priory before. So I am going to literally do this video as I explore it. But I've had a little look, read up about it. You can see there is some more ruins than what we've already found. I haven't even been on the railway that dissected it. I came on the line down from London to Lewis. I've been to Eastbourne before, been through to Hastings. I've not ever done the line from Lewis across the Brighton. And I'm not going to do it today either. It's a video for another day. So we come into the priory park. It should open out somewhere. The question is where? There should be a priory. It must be around here. I think we can go up that mound. I might leave that to the end of the video. That's the bowling green through there. So I think I need to go this way around. But yeah, we should be able to go up that mound and have a look at the views. So let's have a look. Oh yeah, it now says I can see a sign from the same priory park. So I can just see some fragments. Imagine a massive cathedral-like church there in front of us. You can probably see the south-downs all around us. So it was the priory of some pancreas. Of course, I feel like it's the pancreas think of the railway station, which was the terminus of the middle of Mainline. Now it's more known where it still is in terms of the middle of Mainline, but it's also more known for being the Eurostar terminal. But before all of that, some pancreas, obviously a saint. And it was his priory here in Lewis. If you walk along here, it's a very sunny day today. Nice spring, sunny day. As I came on the train, everyone was heading for Brighton. So it's quite refreshing to... I'm quite glad I'm not going to Brighton, because I think it's very busy there. So when we get round this corner, we have to have a proper look around the ruins. And it's just round here. These flowers look nice growing on the walls. Whether these are little shops and kiosks, coffee kiosks, they'll be all closed at the moment. I'm not sure. So there's a park in front of us, in front of this children's park. See some of the ruins. So let's go in and see what we find. So as we walk in here now, here are the ruins of Lewis Priory. Now there's a picture here. It shows us what used to look like. So, you can quite obviously see. It's a fairly large building. I think we probably started up over there. So the railway must cut through here somehow. I know it cuts right through the church. Well, we're going to have a look around, see what we find. I've always enjoyed looking at ruined abyss. So I can just see the church. That's where we started. So I'm going to, I'll finish off at the church because I think the church is one of the most impressive features. But on this occasion I'm going to start of it because there's not a lot of it left. There's this little chapel here. So the bulk of the church would have been just over there. So let's have a look inside here. So I'm not sure I'm actually in the main church. I think the main church would have been sort of there. And I'm in one of what I suppose would be the South Isle possibly. But you can see a lot of it sadly has disappeared. I mean, it would have already been a ruin when the railway came. So you can't entirely, you can't really blame the railway for making the priori a ruin. You see how it marks out on the ground where the priori would have been, where the walls would have been. Come to here. So here, that piece of grass there is the site of the infirmary. And there's a picture here showing you what it looked like. I'm going to literally walk through a wall here. Some in the infirmary now. And then more interesting surviving fragments of the ruin down there. So let's go and have a look around there. There's these little interpretation boards so they can tell us as we go. Ro and I must be just up there. So what we'll do before we do this bulk of ruins, we'll head over to there. We'll get a view. I'm not going to hang around waiting to see a train. But we'll at least get a view of a train. I mean, I'll get the idea where the rail is. There's a little model of it here. I think the building we were actually, I think looking at it, the building in front of us there, I think it's possibly this chapel here. So I think most of the church has disappeared as to where the rail is. Have a look over here. There you get some nice views out of the ruins. So I'm quite excited about exploring that. It's sort of a great church. So yeah, we're effectively standing in this court. It's a really great church. I think we'll just walk through the light side. We'll go through the steps. Train now. I didn't buy someone a different train. There is one. Pass three on three. What's rather ironic, one of the oldest EMUs in Britain is making its way through a much, much older prairie. You see the monks in on the toilet. Now there's a drain. Down there. I remember when I was a child in Tintin Abbey, I used to like playing in the drains. I'll be small enough to disappear in one and come out somewhere else. So yeah, so the toilets would have been down there. You can just see, I think the remains of a drain. Let's go down here, though, into the actual bulk of the ruin. Which way should we go? I could go down there. I'm going to go through here. See what this part's like. And then we'll make our way round back to the other side. So we get to here. What's in here? You always get these fascinating little rooms in prairies where you're never quite sure. Yeah, okay. So it gets to nothing. So people leave rubbish in. That is the only problem. When you get a prairie or an abbey or any kind of ruin, it's freely open. Sometimes the wrong sort of people come and they leave rubbish. We're going to get onto that tower there. That's effectively a folly. So we're still talking about it. So this would have also been part of the monks toilet. So I think actually that drain may have been along there because if you have a look, it's what the building looked like. And then of course there's been an upstairs above us. If we go outside again, I'll get the elevation of it all. Have a look over here. You can see the side wall. See the buttresses sticking out. The wall is leaning this way a bit. And I'm sure it's not going to fall over. It's probably been out that long time. Do you see the top of Lewis Castle over there? Oh yeah. You know what's about the toilet. You can just see the top arch where the drain would have been. So the drain would have run along here and probably out into the river towards the sea. So this is usually the most complete part of the prairie. So just walk through here. And then what we'll do we'll go up towards where the railway is. We'll have a look at some other sections of the prairie. So the railway is behind that fence over there. The last time we went to a prairie we didn't have a railway running through it. We went to Crocs and Abbey and Staffordshire. That had a road running through it. And I drove my car right through the middle of the prairie. If you want to see that, do have a look on the screen now. Coming into another little room here. I'm just going to sort of explore each room. See what there is. See obviously the prairie is free. So if you ever do want to come visit you can just pretty much come anytime. Oh that's some impressive things there. And what's good here. That's where we came down the steps. So we came to this section of the prairie. It feels like it's quite low. Ever this has been underground again. A lot of rubbish in there which is a shame. I'm not entirely sure what I'm in now because there's nothing to tell me. But obviously when it looks so, that big arch has been propped up at some point. So now we'll go back up here and have a look around the next section. There's a board here. This will tell us what we're looking at. Oh so it's the dormitory. So yeah look, we were down there above the monks of the slept upstairs. So I've been in the monks dormitory a few years ago. A friend of mine advised me to stay at a monastery in southern France. Now I'm not so religious but I find it quite fascinating. The way monasteries work, so I stayed on there. I didn't stay in a bed like that. I stayed in the guest house. But I saw the monks' rooms and they actually are like that. Like beds of straw and everything. There's a spiral staircase here. Now I don't agree with climbing on walls but when there's actually steps to go up them, I'll go up them. So let's have a look. See what this takes us. I think it's going to go far but we'll go up those steps and have a see what's at the top. This always makes a visit to a room a bit more valuable. It ends here. And it does say, you know, don't go any further because it probably would be a bit dangerous to walk out over there. But yeah, this is the size we've got. See the railway tracks over there. So I'll let you just hold the camera over there so you can see it further out into the ruins. I think there's not a lot more to see. We kind of see most of it but there's a little bit we can see. So back down here. I wonder where this goes. There's another little room through here. Look at this one. Oh, so this is the refectory. This is where the monks were eating. And again, the railway cuts right through it. So if you look, that is the building. Looking that way. The railway effectively cuts right across that corner. So yeah, it's a bit shame the way the trees are. It'd be really nice to get like a picture of a train and the ruins. But I think that's going to be a bit of a challenge. Let's just have a look at the railway. There we go. There's the railway. Again, I'm not going to wait to see a train. So it's quite a fascinating ruin. It's not a huge ruin like some of the other bigger priors you get. I want to go over and finish by that little tower. That's a folly. I believe the gentleman who acquired the priory, he then built that little folly in the grounds. I think his name was John Blaker. It was a name a bit like Baker, but not Baker. It's on screen now. And he built this folly. I also understand he built a tunnel under the railway. But I don't suppose we'll be very surprised if we get into that. So that's the bulk of the priory behind us. And this will be a good moment for trains to come along. But I'd be surprised if it does. I don't know if it's going to be this little folly. Because I do like follies. And it's quite king of building this one. I don't suppose we can go inside. I don't wonder if there's like a staircase inside. We can get up onto the roof, possibly. But I'm not sure. So I think that will pretty much conclude the video. It looks like looking at the door. It's possibly made from fragments from the actual monastery itself. So here we go. And then that way it's looking back across the ruins of the priory. So I've come back to the other side of the priory. You can see where we first entered the priory. Just over there. I thought we'd come back here and that might be windy. I really want to go up this mound. Because I like finishing videos in a high place. So let's just go up there and see what we can see. And to be completely honest with you, I'm not sure the connection with this in the monastery. But I do know there is one. If you know, do comment and tell me. Let's just ascend to the top. Providing quite a nice view of the priory over there. There's the bowling ring in the foreground. You can see the south-downs behind. No one seems to be coming up here. I did wonder if it was closed. But there's nothing to say it is. So we'll climb it. So that's sort of looking across. Towards Eastbourne Hastings. And well, right away down there is Seaford. Where I'm going to go to this afternoon. Because I've not been on that bit of track. And I'm going to see these class 50s instead of that all the way. That must be the football club over there. We might get quite a nice view over the town. Like I said, oh yeah, there's the castle. I'd love to explore the town and the castle. I'm going to make a bath video for another day. We should see if we can see the station. The railway is directly down there. See what that roundabout is? That's the railway. And then you can just see the railway below us. It's already coming up here. It gives us a very good observation. It might be windy. Apologies if you can't hear me. It is up in the shower. The railway line is stretching off towards Bryson. Looking that way towards Hastings. The river in Lewis, you know, there's a lot more to see than just the priory. But if it's a quick change, it's got to be an hour long like I have. You can go and see the priory. You don't have to pay. So from the mound overlooking the priory. Thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe and comment. Goodbye.