The Lew, Tunbridge Wells One-Place Study

‘The Lew’ was the name given to a small area of Tunbridge Wells in Kent. The name is thought to refer to a long-extinct stream, and is mentioned in the school song of the nearby Skinners’ School: “Then here’s a toast before we part, The School House By The Lew”. Outside the town centre the area lies just north of St John’s Church and mainly to the west of the main road from Tunbridge Wells to Tonbridge (now the A26). In the late 19th and early 20th century it was apparently populated by travellers, the very poor and ‘Italian street musicians with their monkeys’. Much of the original housing was subject to slum clearance in the mid-20th century.