RYE AND WINCHELSEA.
OLD HOUSES, RYE.
The unpicturesque coast is thrust out into the sea to the point at Dungeness where the lighthouse stands a beacon in a region full of peril to the navigator; and then the coast again recedes to the cove wherein is found the quaint old town of Rye, formerly an important "limb" of the Cinque port of Hastings. It has about the narrowest and crookedest streets in England, and the sea is two miles away from the line of steep and broken rock along which "Old Rye" stretches. The ancient houses, however, have a sort of harbor, formed by the junction of the three rivers, the Rother, Brede, and Tillingham, and thus Rye supports quite a fleet of fishing-craft. Thackeray has completely reproduced in Denis Duval the ancient character of this place, with its smuggling atmosphere varied with French touches given by the neighborhood of the Continent. Rye stands on one side of a marshy lowland, and Winchelsea about three miles distant on the other side. The original Winchelsea, we are told, was on lower ground, and, after frequent floodings, was finally destroyed by an inundation in 1287. King Edward I. founded the new town upon the hill above. It enjoyed a lucrative trade until the fifteenth century, when, like most of the others, its prosperity was blighted by the sea's retiring. The harbor then became useless, the inhabitants left, the houses gradually disappeared, and, the historian says, the more massive buildings remaining "have a strangely spectral character, like owls seen by daylight." Three old gates remain, including the Strand Gate, where King Edward nearly lost his life soon after the town was built. It appears that the horse on which he was riding, frightened by a windmill, leaped over the town-wall, and all gave up the king for dead. Luckily, however, he kept his saddle, and the horse, after slipping some distance down the incline, was checked, and Edward rode safely back through the gate. There is a fine church in Winchelsea—St. Thomas of Canterbury—within which are the tombs of Gervase Alard and his grandson Stephen. They were the most noted sailors of their time, and Gervase in 1300 was admiral of the fleet of the Cinque Ports, his grandson Stephen appearing as admiral in 1324. These were the earliest admirals known in England, the title, derived from the Arabic amir, having been imported from Sicily. Gervase was paid two shillings a day. At the house in Winchelsea called the "Friars" lived the noted highwaymen George and Joseph Weston, who during the last century plundered in all directions, and then atoned for it by the exercise of extensive charity in that town: one of them actually became a churchwarden.