This website represents one of the ways in which Lewes Matters is trying to raise awareness and debate amongst fellow townspeople about the plans shortly to be submitted by Angel Property to Lewes District Council. Lewes Matters will continue to collect and share as much information as it can find out about the proposal and its background. Please browse the site and give us feedback via your comments, the Discussion Forum and our Online Questionnaire.
Flood Issues
Stephen Wilson Partnership letter Feb 2008
Response to Crossett comments|
History of the Phoenix Iron Works John Every started in business at the bottom of North Street, Lewes in 1832, where he set up a "furnace cooled with a fan driven by a horse walking round a large wheel". In 1835 a disastrous fire burnt the premises to a cinder but like a Phoenix arising from the ashes, he set up again in Railway Lane near Cliffe Bridge. His business prospered and when the railway wanted to extend their goods yard he had no difficulty in raising the finance, principally from the nonconformist religious community to which he belonged, to move to a riverside site and build his well known Phoenix Iron Works in North Place, which opened in 1861. The company produced railings and lamp posts to line Sussex streets, oven doors and soot boxes for homes and parts for piers in Brighton, Eastbourne, Bognor and Hastings. In 1887, aged 91, John Every died being succeeded by his son, another John. He managed the company for only thirteen years before dying in 1900. It was his son John Every Ill who expanded the company and exported products across the British Empire. After his death in 1943 his son Morris changed the company name to John Every Lewes Ltd and many rain water drainage grilles and manhole covers bearing this name can be found in and around Ditchling. Difficulties beset the company after they had built a mechanised foundry that became a 'white elephant' and a bank was called in to put a rescue package together. A fire damaged part of the top floor and in 1951 the bank sold the iron works to a Mr. Burchell who renamed the concern East Sussex Engineering. By the end of the fifties casting had finished as the company decided to concentrate on heavy engineering and in 1969 much of the site was taken over for the construction of the Phoenix Causeway. In 1976, Aurora holdings owned the factory and sold it piecemeal in 1978. GKS bought the non-ferrous side and in 1986 this closed with five redundancies.
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