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East Sussex's county town, LEWES straddles the River Ouse as it carves a gap through the South Downs on its final stretch to the sea. The town's core is remarkably good-looking: Georgian and crooked older dwellings still line the High Street and the narrow lanes - or "Twittens" - lead off this main street and its continuations, with views onto the downs. Following the Norman Conquest, William's son-in-law, William de Warenne, built a priory and castle here, the latter still dominating the High Street. In 1264 Henry III's incompetence caused a baronial revolt led by Simon de Montfort, which culminated in the king's surrender at the Battle of Lewes, although de Montfort and his reduced force were annihilated within a year at the Battle of Evesham. De Montfort's name crops up all over the town, as do references to the Lewes Martyrs, the seventeen Protestants burned here in 1556, at the height of Mary Tudor's militant revival of Catholicism - an event commemorated in spectacular fashion every November 5. Intellectual nonconformity is something of a Lewes trademark, its roll call of free-thinkers featuring pioneer paleontologist Gideon Mantell, and the radical humanist Tom Paine, whose works inspired or supported the revolutions in France and America. The conservative spirit triumphed in 1914, however, after a pair of local enthusiasts commissioned a version of Rodin's majestic sculpture The Kiss , depicting Paolo and Francesca - lovers from Dante's Inferno - clinched in a full-on embrace. Local sentiment was outraged when the piece was unveiled in Lewes Town Hall, leading to its rapid removal amid a flurry of controversy (the sculpture was re-exhibited in the town hall in June 1999, 85 years after the scandal).
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