Introducing The Lewes Pound. Well it's been around for a while now and seems to be catching on in the town. As an idea to stimulate trade within the borough, it's caught on. You can buy your pounds at certain centres including the town hall and spend them in participating shops and pubs (and that seems to include most of the places you actually might want to shop or drink) - naturally Sid the supermarket supremo in any of his guises will have nothing to do with the scheme. If at any time you feel worried that you don't have 'real' money in your pocket you can exchange your Lewes note for a gold coloured clod. You can have them as change and thus increase circulation. The note itself is properly watermarked and has all the familiar swirls and flourishes so beloved of the engraver (sorry, Mac operator), it' s numbered too and the admirable Harveys brewery has a weekly draw based upon such numbers being in the lucky winners posession. A fine study of Lewes' most influential citizen, Tom Paine adorns the front and also an image of Lewes castle creeps into the local iconography. All this as you would expect from the town whose drinkers defeated, nay trounced, the mighty Greene King in a fight to have their local beer still served in one of Lewes' favourite pubs - The Lewes Arms.
