Lewes Urban Arboretum

What is Lewes Urban Arboretum?

A bequest to Friends of Lewes to fund the planting of trees encouraged the late Paul Millmore, a Friends of Lewes Trustee, to conceive the idea of creating a Lewes Urban Arboretum, consisting of existing tree stock in the town along with additional plantings, integrated by means of a walking guide and narrative and perhaps other, interactive, interpretive materials. After Paul Millmore died we received a second bequest from his will to fund tree maintenance and early years’ care, and a donation in his memory from Brighton and Hove Friends of the Earth.

The Friends of Lewes re-formed its Trees Committee in 2012 to take the Lewes Urban Arboretum project forward, and developed this vision. It consults with residents and landowners across Lewes to identify possible places to plant new trees or replace existing ones to restore or improve the overall streetscape and environment. It monitors, and responds to, all planning applications which include tree works.

Since 2014 we have successfully planted 222 mature street trees in Lewes and we have plans for several more. This Google Map shows the location of the trees we have planted.

The world-wide ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Programme awarded the town of Lewes ‘Level 1 Arboretum status’ in May 2023.

Identifying significant trees and gaps in the treescape of Lewes

The 2019 summary results of our detailed i-Tree Eco Survey, which identifies the ecosystem values of the trees in Lewes are available on this page: More about our i-Tree Eco Survey, and 2019 summary report. This Eco Survey expands on the initial tree survey by David Saunders, a member of our Trees Committee, which was partially funded by a grant from South Downs National Park Authority. His survey report documents the existing significant stock of trees in the town and recommends potential planting sites and species. The Google Map, below, shows the location and species of some of the important trees in Lewes.