And what remains? Very little. At the northern end certain of the spacious streets are inhabited but generally grass-grown. These show the original divisions and dimensions; but southwards and westwards the majestic squares have become merely green fields, until at last the boundaries have been lost altogether. Ancient words of doom ring in our ears as we survey the scene: "Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof.... They shall be left altogether unto the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them."
The church, or rather a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, admiral of the Cinque Ports. A short distance down the road, south-east of the church, is the mansion known as "The Friars": in its beautiful grounds stands practically all that remains of the religious houses—the ivy-grown ruin of the chapel of the Franciscan Monastery. With this mansion and with the brothers Weston, the rogues who dwelt in it, all lovers of Thackeray's Denis Duval will doubtless be familiar. The gates of the town still frown down on the approaching roads; but wall, castle, quays, all are gone, and the place is now, to use Wesley's words, "that poor skeleton of ancient Winchelsea".
WINCHELSEA CHURCH
The church, or a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, Admiral of the Cinque Ports.
(See page 48)
And small wonder too, for every hand has been against it. At the time of its building the Black Death made its appearance, destroying countless inhabitants and dispersing the craftsmen. The town was sacked by the French in 1359, when three thousand entered with sword and torch. Again, in 1378, the same catastrophe occurred. In 1449 they visited once more, but did little damage. For by this time another enemy had set to work—the worst enemy of all. The sea, which in its inconstancy had made the new Winchelsea at the expense of the old, was calmly receding and leaving the Antient Town high and dry, with a perpetually increasing bank of shingle in between.