UNION MUSIC STORE
Lewes is just a short hop down the road from Brighton. While certainly not as big and brassy as its close neighbour, the East Sussex town in the heart of the South Downs is a special place. For starters, it’s home to the never less than excellent Harvey’s Brewery. It also, typically idiosyncratically, plays host to an annual firework display That culminates with the ritual blowing up of an image of Pope Paul V, the pontiff when Guy Fawkes and his band of Catholic revolutionaries came up with the gunpowder plot in the first years of the 17th century. They have long memories in these parts.
Another thing Lewes has going for it is the Union Music Store, a narrow shack of a record shop just round the corner from the railway station. It was previously run by Stevie and Jamie Freeman, who spent eight years building it up into a specialist haunt for all things Americana, folk and country. The two of them succeeded in putting the store on the map.