'Let experts reveal secrets of the Turk's Head'

EXPERTS should be allowed to excavate a site in Albion Street, Lewes, before three new terraced homes are built there, says assistant county archaeologist Martin Brown.

For Mr Brown believes the site adjoining the library is within an archaeologically sensitive area that includes the medieval core of Lewes. And he has written to the planning authority saying: 'The site is immediately adjacent to the site of The Turk's Head public house which, in turn, is said to occupy the site of the medieval parish church of the Holy Sepulchre.

'A search of early Ordnance Survey mapping shows that the area has remained undisturbed since 1860, suggesting good preservation of any archaeological deposits.'

Mr Brown recommends that no development takes place there until a programme of archaeological work has been implemented.

l The Turk's Head Inn of Tudor times was perhaps named from Crusader days when the head of a Turk was often adopted on armorial bearings by knights returning from the Holy Land.

The church said to have stood in Albion Street may have been a Templar one as those knights invariably named their parishes after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.