Custom
Lewes Bonfire
Seventeen crosses for seventeen martyrs.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Town streets, bonfire sites and the War Memorial
- Legend from
- Living custom
- Tone
- Dark history
Flaming crosses, burning barrels in the river and a pope on the bonfire. Lewes does the fifth of November its own way.
Lewes holds the UK's biggest Bonfire Night on 5 November. Seven bonfire societies put on six processions and firework displays, joined by 25–30 societies from around Sussex, with up to 5,000 marchers and 80,000 spectators. Seventeen burning crosses commemorate the 17 Lewes Martyrs, burned for their Protestant faith in 1555–57. Flaming tar barrels are raced along Cliffe High Street and one is thrown into the Ouse. Effigies of Guy Fawkes and Pope Paul V are burned, along with topical tableaux.