Catlin’s

One of the few specialist shops around now. Cigars are ONE of my vices, and here I have had a great selection to choose from. More importantly they are not dried out, as you find in supermarkets and other stores ie Martins and such like.
First class attitude and treatment from the moment you walk in.
Thank you, many, many times!

What a lovely man. Sold me the best smoke of my life after I asked for something special the night before I gave up. Drat.

Lewes is a relatively old fashioned, traditionally British place. As such, Catlin’s is perfectly at home amongest the cobbled streets and English tailors.
They sell lots of old fashioned sweets, still in the large jars, perched in the shop window just as was common place 20 years ago.
If that doesn’t really interest you, Catlin’s also sells more contemporary sweets, along with the typical things you would expect to find in a newsagents.
I personally come here for the enviable sweet collection though, can’t be bettered.

Sadly, I broke my smoking abstinence a while back. Whilst my lungs would probably disagree, this does have a few good opportunities, including a visit to Catlin’s.
I used to pop in here from time to time a number of years back, when I was smoking the first time around. I was pleased to find that the shop was still doing business and was essentially unchanged. This means lots of big glass jars filled with sweets, teas and tobacco all stacked up on the shelves around the store.
It’s the kind of shop made for a town like Lewes an aside from an impressive range of loose pipe and cigarette tobacco (I always go for Auld Kendal vanilla at about £13 for 50g) they also stock a good selection of classic oldschool sweets and high quality chocolate.
Although they are not really my cup of tea, you will also find a very impressive varieties of ‘stogie’. I guess you would have to be an enthusiast to really get excited about what brands they have on offer though.
This shop is just a nice break from a generic newsagent and is the kind of place that you really could expect a little chimney sweep to appear from the side of the counter and order a bag of humbugs! Very Lewes and very good!

An interesting a weird little place, Catlins really is like something from another time. But as I did not live through another time, and I only have a vague knowledge through descriptions from books. I would place this shop as being somewhere between Dicken’s, and WWI and WWII.
With the royal blue shop front it’s window display includes a raft of tobacco’s from the pipe, hand rolling, and even Lebanese water pipe varieties, with names such as Kentucky Nugget and Balkan Mixture„ sat alongside large glass jars of sherbet and humbugs. I love it. I feel like an Oliver Twist type character. No money, downcast and walking by each day I enviously stare into the window, promising that one day I’ll but the whole display.
But what is amazing about this shop, is that not only does it stay true to some old fashioned ideal of a little local shop, but that it’s website is probably the best and most detailed I have ever seen for an independent shop of this kind. For instance if your looking for tobacco, it takes you through each type with a description of it’s taste, texture and a picture to boot. Check it out… www​.catlins​.org​.uk

A fantastic little shop but with so much too offer!
There is not an inch of space on all of the shelves.
Its filled with some of the most amazing chocolates, sweets and tobacco.
When everyday tobacco just isn’t enough then this is the place to get some amazing tobacco.
If you can’t even get to the shop then be sure to check put the website and make an order.

The staff are fantastic and treat you like a customer should be treated.

An amazing survivor on Lewes High Street is this tiny but fabulous traditional tobacconists and sweet shop. It sells a wide range of cigars, tobacco, pipes and snuff, and the chocolate range includes Belgian, Swiss, English, Italian and even high-​quality Ghanaian Chocolate.
The range of specialty confectionery is impressive — Amarelli Liquorice, Lassiters’ White Mint Truffles, Beeches Coffee Creams, Bovetti Perigord Chocolate, Cocadance Handmade English Chocolates, Devine Fairtrade African Chocolate, Anthon Berg Liqueurs, Whitakers Chocolates, Villars Swiss Chocolate, Revillon Chocolates, Leon Torino and Venchi Italian sweets, to name but a few. Younger customers are catered for with more traditional sweets in jars.
This is pretty much the perfect shop for a really special present, and the service is — as you might expect — knowledgeable and helpful, with traditional ‘Old-​World’ values. (It’s a while since I have been addressed as ‘Sir’ just on entering). But they’ve also entered the modern era, with a wonderful web-​site to whet your palate.
Chocoholics beware!