‘Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.’ 
— Epitaph of Christopher Wren, 1723, St. Paul’s Cathedral

History hiding in plain and misunderstood sight, a grassy mound situated on a tiny parcel of suburban land.

Hemmed in by a car park, a bowls club, and a disused croquet lawn.

The gentility of an ascent via concrete steps and a pathway soon terminates in a boot-sucking muddy path that spirals onward to the summit. Some have taken a more direct route to the top, inscribing a darkened track into the turf. The slightly concave peak offers fine views of a car park, a bowls club, and a disused croquet lawn. The ruins of Lewes Priory can be seen nearby.

The East Sussex county town of Lewes has a well-documented history. A Norman castle, the tumults of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, a Civil War battle, and home to notables such as the activist and revolutionary Thomas Paine. And yet, despite centuries of Events, People, and record keeping, no-one could agree on the origins of the structure.

It has been claimed by many. Catholics know it as The Calvary, a surviving holy relic of the destroyed Priory and still the site of an Easter ritual; the earliest map of Lewes, from 1745, names it as such. Local Georgian antiquarian TW Horsfield thought it to be a spoil heap created by the excavation of a nearby salt pan. Others considered it the site of the first Lewes castle, a dry run for the mighty finished article across town, hence its other name: The Mount.

The most likely origin story of this scheduled monument is just as particular and typifies how, even in a well-known location, with continuous habitation and recorded history, against the background of a culture with strong general continuity, it is still possible for us to forget. In forgetting collectively, and completely, we encounter a phenomenological event in which we construct new histories, future myths, and plausible stories. Perhaps this primacy of our imagination eases a sense of uncanny disquiet felt in these unremembered places, creating what Dylan Trigg calls ‘an imagined return to the past.’

The forgotten history of Calvary Mount underscores our collective capability for generating new - and contending - stories for sites in and around the places we inhabit, while also pointing to a future ripe with potential for myth making. Longevity seems to lend itself to this process and, if you seek the next mis-remembered location or monument, just look about, it will be there, forgotten in plain sight.