An eye on Rye

There are places that look lovely and then never live up to their hype, but Rye is a place that lives up to expectation and surpasses. Having spent longer getting here than it should have taken, mostly my fault (the small fire at Hastings Railway Station didn't help) it was with real awe that I looked around the town.

I have always been and shall be a bit of a history buff. I like the architecture of anything up to and including Victorian Gothic. Rye for me then was a delight. The small streets give the place an atmosphere that you could walk around it all day if it wasn't so small.

Small is good. You can take things in on a bigger scale. Such as Ypres tower, one of the oldest buildings in the town it hints at Rye's past as one of the Cinque Ports. Which gave it self governance and freedom from taxes. Rye was a target for a number of raids by the French.

Rye is now two miles inland and shows the fickle nature of the coast line in this part of the county. winchelsea the next town down the coast was rebuilt after the old town was destroyed by the sea only for it to now be inland.

Mermaid Street is one of the most interesting and photographed streets in Sussex. There is a mix of buildings from Medieval to Georgian. This I think is why it holds it's charm. There is a hint of preservation but not in a overly handed way. The shops are mainly independent business and are homed in buildings that will be here for a long time longer.
Much of this history can be discovered in the heritage centre which has a sound and light show with a town model

Rye's literary past is also something to boast about with Henry James and EF Benson both having occupied Lamb House at some time or another. Other notable writers to have lived in the town are John Fletcher the Jacobian play write and Radclyffe Hall. For me though the fact that John Ryan the creator of 'Captain Pugwash'  lived in the town made me the happiest out of the lot. Although the fact that the Cheeky Girls live in the town makes one chuckle as well.

I am going to come back to Rye and look at more of these places in more detail but I hope for now that I have left you with enough to inspire a visit of your own.