Book Review: All Change! Lewes Bus Station

Thursday 17th September 2026

Full disclosure: Historian Ruth Thomson (co-author of this wonderful new book along with husband Neil) contacted me in June 2025 explaining how she was compiling “a history of Lewes bus station (including the garden of Trinity House on which it stands) and … wondered if you would be interested in being involved?” I was delighted to share recollections of my involvement over almost 45 years with this iconic structure in the town but more importantly put her in touch with others (employees and bus enthusiasts) who I knew would be only to pleased to help. Ruth went on to explain “as editor of the recent, award-winning illustrated book: Grown in Lewes, I am keen to include voices and photographs of those who used the bus station as passengers, drivers, conductors, workers, etc. and to include as wide a variety of material – photographs, maps, tickets, artwork, posters, timetables and other ephemera, etc as I can to add visual interest to the account.”

Fifteen months later Ruth and Neil have just published their book – All Change! Lewes Bus Station. And what a superb production it is. As Ruth hoped, it’s full of ‘voices and anecdotes’ of the many local people who’ve had a connection with the bus station from its opening in 1954 until it closed for good, exactly four years ago, in September 2022.

The new book is copiously illustrated with photographs and artwork charting not only developments in transport provision across the decades but also the many changes in social values, attitudes and habits.

Much of the early transport history has been gleaned from contemporary local press cuttings across the decades as well as back copies of Southdown’s staff magazine, the Southdown Chronicle. There’s a fascinating historic background explaining the location and opening of the bus station, being situated in what was once part of the extensive garden of 213 High Street – a prominent building in the town occupied by successive lawyers for more than 200 years, as it still is today. You can only imagine the legal processes Southdown therefore had to go through to build a bus station in such a location.

Architects for the new building were a Brighton based firm who’d also designed bus stations for Southdown in Bognor Regis in 1934 (now a supermarket car park) as well as both Chichester (bus station and garage still standing) and Haywards Heath (now a Waitrose).

To make best use of the confined space an island footprint was designed, around which buses circulated in one direction and on which the building sits with its distinctive features such as a sheltered walkway for passengers under a broad, overhanging, cantilevered first floor as well as rear curved corners. As Ruth and Neil observe, the building became a “visible flagship for Lewes’ growing bus network – a hub where people could wait for buses and enquire about bus journeys and timetables”.

The garage opposite, with its long sliding doors, housed 16 buses and a fuel storage tank, facilities for washing and cleaning buses, and a pit for minor service.

Ruth and Neil uncovered the original internal plans for the building which brought memories flooding back for me, as I’m sure they will for everyone who worked or visited the premises. The layout included a public café and toilets on the first floor as well as a kitchen, staff canteen, social club area for staff and toilets with the ground floor housing a waiting room for passengers with two telephone booths, two kiosks selling newspapers, sweets and cigarettes, a booking office and staff facilities comprising a paying-in room, cashier’s office and Inspector’s room. Public toilets at the far end were accessed from outside.

It’s not hard to see why, with all those facilities and its central location (a stone’s throw from the junction of School Hill, Cliffe High Street, Eastgate Street and Friars Walk), Lewes bus station became a much loved focal point for the town and explains why there’s been such an outpouring of emotion and sadness at losing it.

It’s interesting to be reminded, even at the opening ceremony of the brand new bus station in March 1954, Southdown’s chairman, Raymond P Beddow, told the gathered VIPs and dignitaries to mark the occasion, as quoted in the Sussex Express for 5th April 1954, that “it must not be expected by either (Transport) licensing authorities or local authorities that the Southdown Company would be able to provide new bus stations often. The particular factor existing at Lewes does not apply generally. Bus stations are costly to provide and do not bring more revenue. In one way or another, passengers have to pay for bus stations and it follows that, from our point of view and from the point of view of most of our passengers, bus stations are to be avoided, if possible”.

A somewhat controversial stance but the ‘particular factor’ Beddow’s referred to was no doubt the town’s challenging traffic congestion, even in 1954, in School Hill/High Street with the Sussex Express observing a bus station “will enable buses to wait and pick up and to discharge passengers completely off the highway and do much to relieve congestion in the crowded High Street”.

Reading the book from cover to cover you soon realise how in some ways everything changes over the decades, but in other ways, nothing changes.

Ruth and Neil have divided their very readable account of the history into five sections. The first 70 pages cover the heyday of the bus station including many wonderful personal reminiscences from staff who worked there (including relatives of those now deceased) and passengers who regularly used it for their travels, followed by 26 pages featuring the “Left Turn – Nationalisation” era from the late 1960s, followed by a further 28 pages covering “Right Turn – Privatisation”, with the end of the story told in 14 pages covering “No Through Road – Closure”. Another 20 page section covers the interesting period after most buses ceased serving the bus station but the building was used for a range of community activities and eateries. There’s also a section highlighting the Lewes personalities immortalised by having a Brighton & Hove bus named after them.

‘All Change!’ covers the various ownership changes which have impacted the bus station across the decades including Southdown’s move from the private sector (part of British Electric Traction) to nationalised ownership within the newly created National Bus Company in 1968 then back to private ownership, initially to its management team in 1987, from whom Stagecoach bought the business to add to its expanding portfolio of bus companies in 1989, and crucially for this story, that purchase included the ownership of Lewes bus station.

Ten years later in 1999 what was described as Stagecoach’s “continuing lack of interest in the depot” was highlighted in the Sussex Express: “everyone knows that Lewes bus station can be a pretty depressing place to wait after dark. It is beginning to look pretty dismal during daylight hours as well. It needs some tender loving care. Or, alternatively, demolition and rebuilding. The general air of shabbiness is letting the town down.”

With echoes of Beddow’s speech at the opening ceremony in March 1954, 51 years later, in September 2005, Stagecoach decided it could no longer justify the overheads of a garage and bus station with 25 buses and 70 employees. The company sold its routes to Brighton & Hove which we were pleased to buy especially as it enabled us to develop the inter-urban routes along the A27/A26 corridor between Brighton and Tunbridge Wells as well as to Ringmer. But we could accommodate the buses and staff at our garage in Lewes Road, Brighton along with an expanded outstation which Stagecoach had inherited from Southdown, in Uckfield, so we no longer needed Lewes bus station as a base for staff and buses.

Inevitably, within a year, Stagecoach had sold Lewes bus station to a property developer, Rees Elliot, based locally in Lewes. To begin with Rees Elliot kindly allowed buses to continue using the bus station as a goodwill gesture but once the company wanted to charge £23,000 per annum, just like Beddows, I felt passengers would not appreciate paying that additional cost for what had become a dubious benefit of standing under a cantilevered roof with that “general air of shabbiness” to wait for their bus to arrive at what was effectively just one bus stop.

With Norman Baker’s help (the well respected MP for Lewes who later became a Transport Minister in the Coalition Government), a compromise was found with Brighton bound buses continuing to use the bus station (along with local routes provided by Compass Bus for the County Council) and Tunbridge Wells/Ringmer bound buses using a new bus stop located immediately opposite, outside Waitrose.

Meanwhile the cafe continued to trade and in the ensuing 16 years (between 2006 and 2022) experienced a succession of interesting developments including, for a time, an artisan baker who opened a pizzeria in 2012 which, together with a successor called BusClub Pizza, lasted until 2019 when Zu Café arrived in the premises creating a “lively hub for food, conversation, creativity and community life”. The former waiting room was transformed into a welcoming lounge, furnished with leather and velvet chairs, artwork, relaxing music and a community noticeboard. Upstairs Zu developed an affordable ethical restaurant serving vegetarian, vegan and raw food – riding a wave of people becoming more aware of what they were eating.

The story of Lewes bus station entered its final chapter in 2021 when Rees Elliot sold the property to Essex-based developers, the Generator Group, which promptly submitted a pre-application proposal to the South Downs National Park Authority for a mixed-use development for the site. It was initially refused but following subsequent amendments (32 flats, three houses and 198 sq.m. of ground floor commercial space) was approved in 2024.

Meanwhile the Generator Group completely closed the site to public access in September 2022 with the remaining bus departures dispersed to bus stops in School Hill/High Street and Friars Walk and the Zu Café closed down. High black hoardings and a gate were erected across the front of the site and the building was locked and left empty. The garage remains in use as a storage facility and furniture workshop. And the book records “congestion caused by bus stops on School Hill has come full circle since the bus station was conceived in the late 1940s”.

Bringing the story completely up to date the bus station is again up for sale (for £4.5 million) and there are plans to spend £300,000 to relocate two bus stops further away from the town centre on Phoenix Causeway as replacements for those causing congestion in School Hill.

It’s a fascinating story told in a very engaging way and I heartily recommend the book not only for anyone with a local interest in Lewes but also those with an interest in social history and the role of bus stations in our town centres.

Ruth and Neil are launching the book at an event in Lewes next month but it’s available to purchase now through the Lewes History Group at this website. All Change! costs just £16.50 + £2.95 postage and packing. It’s also available from Leadbetter and Good, a shop in Cliffe High Street, Lewes as well as from the Southdown Enthusiasts Club.

And that front cover? It’s a painting from the early 1980s by renowned Lewes artist Julian Bell who “wanted to capture the bustle of this packed, interesting place, which reflected the flavour of Lewes at the time. I was inspired to paint a panorama of it …. portraying real Lewes people waiting for their buses including Jonathan Terry, sitting on the barrier, and David Hambly, his best friend standing next to him.”

Roger French

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