The Lewes Arms is a small folk club with a friendly, informal atmosphere. We mostly book performers of British traditional music, but we enjoy other styles as well. We like any member of the audience who wants to sing or play to have a turn, so have a couple of songs or tunes ready if you'd enjoy performing (but don't feel you've got to if you don't want to.) We are a no smoking club.
Every so often we book musicians to hold an instrument workshop in the day and give an evening performance in the club. See our Workshops page for details of forthcoming workshops.
We also run theme evenings from time to time. They are often connected with the season and whenever possible we serve traditional seasonal food at them, such as plum shuttles on Valentine's Day, soul cakes at Halloween and home-made bread and cheese at harvest.
Another regular event is a tunes session led by an individual player. Everyone is welcome to bring an instrument and join in; we mostly play English dance tunes. Singers are welcome too, as usual. A practice session is held in the clubroom once a month for people who would like to learn the tunes popular in local sessions. (Links)
Although it's called a club for historic reasons, there are no membership fees or cards. On guest nights we charge entrance on the door, varying depending on the guest but usuall between £3 and £6. All money taken goes to the guest performer. On theme nights, tune sessions and sing-arounds we take a collection, encouraging people who are in work to contribute £3 if possible. Our advertising costs are covered by a weekly raffle.
We hope you will come and see us soon.
Bryan Creer, Dave Earl, Sandra Goddard, Valmai Goodyear, Suzanne Higgins
Diane & Steve Nevill, George Oakley, Robert O'Mahony and Derek Seed