From a distance, the town of Lewes looks like just about any other nestled into the countryside around Sussex, a region in the south-east of England.
Sliced in two by the ribbony river Ouse, each half of the town is crosshatched with old cobblestoned streets and splotched with dense green gardens. Modest red brick cottages and grey stone castles sit side by side, their dark chimneys and ancient spires pointing up and over the hills into the bright, open farmland beyond.
