America250UK Events at Thomas Paine: Legacy

From 4th January 2026 during Opening Times

The Coat of Hopes–created during a 2,000-mile pilgrimage to COP26–arrives in Lewes to launch the anniversary year. 

Made from hundreds of hand-stitched blanket patches expressing personal hopes for climate and community, the Coat will be accompanied into the town on an 8-mile public walk from Brighton.

Visitors will be invited to reflect on the Coat's message and add their own intentions for the year ahead, contributing to a growing collective expression of hope and responsibility.

From January 2026 during Opening Times

Photographer and activist Red Saunders brings his epic Hidden Project to Lewes. 

This project is a series of cinematic tableaux reimagining overlooked moments in Britain's long struggle for social justice. 

Using staged "living pictures", Saunders resurrects the dissenters, radicals, and non-conformists whose actions helped shape modern democratic rights.

Bold, dramatic, and deeply human, the exhibition asks visitors to consider whose histories we remember and whose are left out.