Location: The Keep
The focus of The Keep’s Open Day this year is food! The Lewes Octoberfeast festival which supports creative and sustainable food culture in East Sussex is back for its sixth year, running from 18 September to 4 October. As part of this celebration, join us at The Keep on Saturday 26 September as we explore the history of food and drinking culture.
Visit the archives to investigate mealtimes from our past and find out more about what The Keep has to offer.
Explore our collections:
There will be exhibitions in the reading room from all three partners at The Keep. Material held by the East Sussex Record Office will explore food production and how the local area coped with foodshortages. The University of Sussex Special Collections exhibition will include material from the Mass Observation Archive with menus, diaries and posters, documenting food during the Second World War. The Royal Pavilion & Museums’ display will include material relating to food and cooking in Brighton during World War I, dining at Preston Manor and the Royal Pavilion itself, and one of Brighton’s more unusual food retailers, The Egg Shop, which used to be found in Gardner Street.
Get involved:
There will be activities taking place and also the chance to contribute to the creation of a Sussex family recipe collection – bring along your own family recipe book and share that favourite dish that has been passed down through the generations.
We will have a variety of stall and displays, showcasing local food culture from across the ages:
Archaeology stall
Come and see how important the remains of food in the past can be to an archaeological investigation. Local finds from the area will be available to view and our younger audience can make a Roman purse as a souvenir to take home. Live searches of the archaeological database will be available for members of the public to view.
Bevendean History Project stall
The Bevendean History Project will exhibit displays about the history of Bevendean and will be showing some surviving recipes from one of the owners of Bevendean Farm.
History on Your Doorstep display
History on Your Doorstep has been an 18 month Heritage Lottery Funded project aiming to collect contemporary archival material of the local area around the Keep. The project exhibition will include an exhibition of Moulsecoomb School Art Scheme Portraits, and portraits from ‘Family Photo Day’ at Brighton Aldridge Community Academy. Local history timeline resource boxes, information about the project archives and collected oral histories and a digital animation celebrating the stories collected.
Talks:
Anne Stamper from the East Sussex WI will be giving a talk on ‘100 Years of the WI and food – growing, preserving and preparing’ at 11.30am.
Paula Wrightson, Learning Officer from Brighton Museum, will be giving a talk on the horrors of the Victorian kitchen at 12.30pm.
Tours:
Take the chance to explore behind-the-scenes- at The Keep; visit the conservation studio where you can see The Keep’s conservator repairing recipe books from our collections. Tours will be running at 11am, 1pm and 2pm. Please book your place at reception on the day.
The Open Day will be running from 10am-3pm, so feel free to drop in; no prior booking is needed.
All ages welcome, refreshments available.

Please note that the normal research service in the reading room and reference room will not be available on this day.