Town in East Sussex, England
Rye
The sea walked away from Rye, leaving a hilltop port of smugglers' inns, a clock with 'quarter boys' and the real-life model for Tilling in Mapp and Lucia.
Key information
- County
- East Sussex
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Cobbled Mermaid Street, medieval Cinque Ports history, smuggling legends, Rye Bay scallops
- Famous people
- Henry James, E.F. Benson, Rumer Godden
About Rye
The port the sea left behind
Rye sits on a small sandstone hill above the marshes, a few miles from the coast. It wasn't always so far inland. In the Middle Ages it was a busy Channel port, and it was added to the Cinque Ports as an Ancient Town, providing ships for the Crown in return for privileges. Then the sea changed its mind. A great storm in 1287 reshaped this stretch of coast and the course of the River Rother. Over the following centuries, silt and shingle pushed the shoreline away. Rye now looks out over flat green marsh to a sea you can't see from the streets. That retreat is a big part of why the town looks as it does. When the harbour stopped making Rye rich, there was little money to knock down the old buildings and start again.
The year the French stole the bells
Rye's position made it a target. In 1377 a French raid burned much of the town and carried off the church bells. Rye and neighbouring Winchelsea did not let it lie: the following year, men from the two towns raided Normandy and brought the bells home. Rye's surviving medieval defences include the Ypres Tower, a stout 13th-century stronghold that later served as a prison and now houses Rye Castle Museum. Close by stands the Landgate, built in 1329 and the only surviving gateway of the original town walls. Inside the museum is a grimmer relic: the gibbet cage used after the hanging of John Breads in 1743 for the murder of Allen Grebell, a killing thought to have been meant for the mayor.
Cobbles, clocks and a pub with a smugglers' reputation
Mermaid Street is the postcard view: a steep, cobbled lane lined with crooked timber-framed houses. The Mermaid Inn, rebuilt in 1420 on older cellars, is the star. Legend has it that the Hawkhurst Gang, the most feared smuggling gang of the 18th century, drank here with pistols laid on the tables. Up the hill, St Mary's Church has one of the oldest working turret clocks in England, dating from the 1560s. Its long pendulum swings inside the church. Outside, the golden 'quarter boys' strike the quarter hours, and tourists with cameras gather to watch. Rye's other great landmark is Lamb House, built in 1722 by James Lamb. In 1726 King George I was driven ashore here by a storm and stayed as the Lambs' guest.
Why Rye is really Tilling
Rye has attracted writers for over a century. The American novelist Henry James took a lease on Lamb House in 1897 and wrote some of his late masterpieces there. After him came E.F. Benson, who not only lived in Lamb House but was elected mayor of Rye in the 1930s. Benson turned the town into Tilling, the setting for his Mapp and Lucia novels, a battleground of social one-upmanship among genteel neighbours. Readers can still pick out the church, the cobbled streets and the site of Lamb House's former garden room, which the books made famous. The room was destroyed by bombing in 1940. The television adaptations were filmed in Rye too. The novelist Rumer Godden lived at Lamb House from 1968, and Radclyffe Hall also made her home in the town.
Scallops, sole and bonfires
Rye is a working fishing port, with boats landing at Rye Harbour. The local speciality is the Rye Bay scallop, caught by small day boats and celebrated each February at a scallop festival. Dover sole and other fish from the bay turn up on menus across the town. Beyond the harbour, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve covers shingle, saltmarsh and lagoons and is a notable breeding ground for terns and other seabirds. Nearby Camber Sands, with its huge dunes, is a short drive away. In autumn the town joins the Sussex bonfire tradition, with Rye Bonfire Society processions through the lanes, flaming torches and a big fire. Rye United was a local football club until it folded in March 2014.