South East

The Battle of Lewes took place on 14 May 1264, the first major battle of the Second Barons' War. The prelude to this was widespread dissatisfaction with the manner of King Henry III's reign, particularly over issues such as taxation and inheritance. Matters came to a head and a rebel baronial faction led by Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, took up arms against the king. De Montfort's force of about 5,000 approached Lewes, a royal stronghold with about 10,000 troops, from the downland to the north. The King's son, Prince Edward (later Edward I), rode out from Lewes Castle with heavy cavalry, engaged de Montfort's inexperienced left flank and chased it from the field. De Montfort, meanwhile, charged downhill at Henry's main army in the vicinity of Landport Bottom and won a decisive victory. Most of the fighting took place there, around the Black Horse pub on Western road, now a residential area and on the High Street. The king took refuge in Lewes Priory and was forced to surrender to de Monfort. Edward too was held captive - though later escaped. There is a link to a battlefield walk below. The address is for the Black Horse pub; walk from there up Spital Road, past the prison, and up onto the downs.

Beachy Head is a famous chalk headland and landmark, immediately to the west of the town of Eastbourne. There are fine views and walks along the cliffs, approx 500 feet above sea level. There is parking nearby and at Birling Gap further along the coast. Beachy Head has an interesting history and was used as a listening and lookout post during WW2. The cliffs are, however, extremely dangerous and the area has a high death-rate, through a combination of foolish accident and, unfortunately, suicide. Beachy Head lighthouse began operating in 1902.

The post code below is for the nearby pub.

 
Bignor Roman Villa is thought to have reached its peak in the 4th century.  It was famously rediscovered in 1811, when farmer George Tupper’s plough hit a piece of stone.  Excavations revealed wonderful mosaics buried under the turf of the South Downs and the site soon became a tourist attraction.  Buildings were erected (on Roman foundations) in the early 19th century to protect the remains.  These are typical flint and thatch agricultural buildings of the time and are of historical value themselves.  The Tupper family still farm some 2,000 acres at Bignor and still own and run the villa as a tourist attraction.  The mosaics are stunning – the up-market floor coverings of their day.  Sadly, we can only make educated guesses about the people that once enjoyed them as part of their home.
Bignor Roman Villa is set in lovely countryside and also hosts regular reenactments.

Bletchley Park was the home of the top-secret code breakers of World War Two, whose work had a profound impact on the war; it has been claimed that their success in intercepting enemy signals and breaking codes shortened the war by two years. For years, very few people knew about their work, most famously centred on German Enigma cipher machines, but information started to become more available in the 1970s. Bletchley Park was in a poor state when taken over by Milton Keynes Borough Council in 1992. A trust was set up to conserve the site and turn it into a museum and it opened its doors to the public in 1993. A massive restoration project took place and BP is now a major tourist attraction.

Bletchley Park also includes the National Museum of Computing and has featured in several films and TV productions.

The Bodleian Library is the largest of several libraries within the University of Oxford collectively and confusingly known as the Bodleian Libraries. The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, in Britain is second in size only to the British Library and has been a library of legal deposit for 400 years.  Together, the Bodleian Libraries hold over 13 million printed items.  College libraries, some of which are older than the Bodleian, are entirely independent.

The University’s first library was in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, in a room which still exists as a vestry and a meeting room for the church. In the 15th C, Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester and younger brother of King Henry V, gave the University his priceless collection of more than 281 manuscripts, including several important classical texts. The University decided to build a new library for them over the then new Divinity School; it was begun in 1478 and finally opened in 1488.  However, the collection was destroyed by the Dean of Christ Church in 1550 as part of an attempt to purge the English church of all traces of Catholicism. Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), a diplomat and Fellow of Merton College, came to the rescue.  He had married a rich widow (whose husband had made his fortune in pilchards) and decided to "set up my staff at the library door in Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose, than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public use of students".  The Bodleian Library opened in 1602, incorporating the earlier 15th century library.  Known to many simply as ‘the Bod’, these buildings are still used by students and scholars from all over the world.

There are three buildings across the Bodleian Libraries accessible to visitors: the Old Bodleian Library, the magnificent Georgian Radcliffe Camera and the modern Weston Library. The old Divinity School, with a fabulously intricate vaulted ceiling, is underneath Duke Humfrey's library.