inhabitant likes to repeat to the present day. But its prosperity was already undermined. A sand bank had been steadily forming to the westward of it, and the sea was now beginning gradually to retire. We need not follow its history further. It is now a village, with seven hundred inhabitants, and separated from the sea by nearly two miles of sandy flat. The lines of its streets may be traced along the green fields. Three of the gates are yet standing, but only one of them adjoins the town. Another is a shapeless ruin, down to which a few houses straggle; while the third is a mile distant from any houses! But of all the decayed old towns we have seen along the coast, Winchelsea is the best worth visiting. It owns itself a wreck, and does not try to get rid of the ruins, and put on an appearance of smartness. The wide space which the town originally covered helps now not a little to increase the reverend air it carries as a ruin. You wander about its outskirts among pleasant by-ways, and are startled to come upon some fragment of a chapel or an old house, when you thought yourself a long way beyond the limits of the town. And the more important remains are much above the ordinary grade. The church-there were anciently two-is yet in the centre of the great square, which remains unencroached on, though only partly. surrounded by houses, and serves as a scale by which to judge of the size of the town. The church is partly ruinous; only the chancel, which is used as the present parish church, remaining entire. But a considerable portion of the walls are standing, clad in a venerable mantle of ivy. Originally, the church must have been very large, and extremely handsome. It is of the transition period from the Early English to the Decorated style. In its semi-ruinous state it is a noble fragment-more impressive, perhaps, than when perfect; and as a ruin, one of the most magnificent we know of in any of these southern counties. The interior shows many signs of former grandeur. There are several fine monuments,—three are of Knights Templars, one of them, which is within the modern vestry, being in an unusually perfect condition. There is also a monument of an abbess, that deserves notice. It is said that, beneath the widespreading ash-tree which stands against the west side of the churchyard wall, John Wesley preached his last open-air sermon. Another very beautiful ruin is that of the Chapel of the Virgin, which formerly belonged to a monastery of Grey Friars. It now stands outside the town, within what is called the Friary Park-and can only be seen on Mondays. It is exquisite of its kind, and should be seen, if possible. Of the three gates which remain, the most perfect is the Land-gate, through which you pass on your way from Rye. It is a picturesque old pile, having a wide gateway, between massive round towers. Looking through it from the inside, the town of Rye is seen seated on its hill, as though a picture, set in a heavy antique frame. The effect is very curious. Strand-gate, which is, as we said, a mere shapeless mass of stone, does not appear to have ever been of much consequence; but New-gate, about a mile along the Icklesham road, has been much finer. It is now quite ruinous, but it stands in a lovely spot, half buried among trees, and leading into a lane, the high banks of which are, in the spring, literally covered with primroses. There are many other old buildings, or vestiges of old buildings, to be seen, but we cannot speak of them now. The reader who feels desirous of further information about the ancient or present condition of this curious old town, will do well to consult Mr. Cooper's "History of Winchelsea" recently published. RYE is seated on a hill about two miles beyond Winchelsea. Rye would be a noticeable place wherever it might be; but standing where it does, just at the termnination of the long flat, Romney marsh, it finds many a one who sces it, ready to unite with the townsmen in styling it "romantic." Once it must have been eminently so. "The spot on which the town of Rye stands was originally an insulated rock, surrounded on all sides, and at all times, by the waters of the ocean, and unapproachable except by the aid of ships or boats." (Holloway, "Hist. of Rye.") Its position now is very different. The rock, of course, still stands where it did, though somewhat diminished in size, and the town is yet on its summit and along its slopes-but the sea is two miles distant from it, and ships of small size can alone approach it, and only by means of a singularly tortuous and inconvenient channel. Yet even for this channel the town is indebted to a river which, during the first centuries of Rye's existence, flowed to the sea by a course that left Rye far away to the southward. The Rother, which now flows at the base of the hill on which Rye is built, and by its æstuary forms the haven, till the reign of Edward I. entered the sea at Romney, and formed Romney Harbour. Rye was in existence at the time of Edward the Confessor, for he gave it and Winchelsea to the monks of Fécamp, in Normandy, to whom it belonged till it was redeemed by Henry III., in 1246. It appears to have been added to the Cinque Ports, under the title of an "Ancient Town," as early as the reign of Henry II. Like the other towns along the coast, it suffered heavily from its proximity to the shores of France. A petition addressed to Richard II., in 1378, entreats his Majesty "to have consideration of the poor town of Rye, inasmuch as it has been several times taken" by the foe; and in consequence "is unable further to repair the walls, wherefore the town is on the sea-side open to enemies." And they remind the King of the double peril to which they are liable-for "at the last taking of the town, when the enemy had returned to France," the authorities of Rye were hanged and quartered for not having made a better defence! Wherefore, the present authorities, not exactly relishing the prospect before them, "pray your Most High Lordship for God's sake, and as an act of charity," to grant them power to levy and apply certain fines for the purpose of building up the said ruinous walls. As we do not hear of any more mayors or barons suffering suspension, we may hope that they not only repaired their walls, but made a better defence behind them; for certainly the town was taken and plundered two or three times afterwards. But all these, and the ravages of pestilence, from which it also several times suffered, we pass over. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries its prosperity fluctuated considerably: in the sixteenth it began to show symptoms of declension from the loss of its harbour. "It is very difficult," Mr. Holloway observes, "not to say impossible, to point to the precise period when the sea first began to retire from the parts adjacent to the town of Rye." We need not follow the stages of its decay. So late as "the reign of Charles, a sixty-four-gun ship could ride in safety in the harbour, while now it will admit no vessel of more than 200 tons burden." In 1750, a shingle bar having formed at the mouth of the harbour, and nearly blocked it up, an attempt was made to cut a new channel to the sea. The work was continued till 1778, when, the authorities becoming convinced that it was a failure, it was abandoned and the old harbour again reverted to, and made navigable at high water. Recently considerable alterations have been made in it: an embankment has been formed where the water used to spread out, and the channel has been made considerably narrower. We do not know whether it has answered the intention of the contrivers; but one of the consequences of thus confining the current has been, that just where the back-water meets the tide-stream at the point above the coast-guard ship, a sand-bar is rapidly forming; and, unless some measures be taken to remove it, will soon seriously impede the already troublesome navigation. At low water the harbour is nearly dry. The town has a good deal of trade yet; and when the railway is opened to it, the inhabitants hope there will be more. Ship-building is carried on to some extent, and the building places (they cannot be called ship-yards) present a very busy aspect. But the chief trade arises from its being the place for the export of the agricultural produce of this part of Kent and Sussex (near the junction of which counties it stands), and for the import of coal and Dutch goods. Internally, Rye has much of the look of an old town. But while retaining something of antiquity in its appearance, it has not failed to put on also something of a modern air, and the mixture renders it pleasing and cheerful. The principal streets are clean and well-paved, and the shops are well-stocked, and have a business-like character. The streets and passages that run down the steep side of the hill towards the harbour are, some of them, as inodorous as they are inconvenient. At the end of the High-street there is a broad piece of pavement, fenced in with an iron railing, which forms a sort of parade on the brow of the hill, and surprises the stranger who strolls up the street by suddenly opening to him a wide and pleasant prospect: Lydd steeple is plainly visible. There are some old architectural remains about Rye. Of the civil architecture, Ypres' Tower, built in the reign of Stephen, by William Ypres, Earl of Kent, is the most ancient. It was originally intended for the defence of the town, at the south-east angle of which it is placed: it is now used as a jail. Of the three gates which served as the entrances to the town, only one-the Land-gate, which leads to the London road-remains. It is large and picturesque. The gateway stands between two round towers, forty-seven feet high and twenty-five feet in diameter. When perfect, it had all the usual defensive appliances, and must have been a strong as well as formidable-looking structure. It is now in a rather bad state. There are several old houses about the town, but it must suffice to merely mention them. The church is ancient and very large, by far the largest in these parts-and also in about the worst condition. It has undergone almost every variety of defacement that churchwarden's taste and churchwarden's economy could inflict upon it—and the townsmen wonder that strangers do not admire it. But there is a grand eastern window, and there are some other windows and parts, which will be discovered by those who care for such things, that have escaped without material injury. Of the buildings belonging to the religious establishments that once existed in Rye, but few remains are left. The principal relic is the Chapel of the Friars Eremites of St. Augustine, situated on Conduit Hill. There are some points of interest about it, but it is too much blocked in to be fairly seen, and if it could be seen, it is too much altered to be worth looking at. It is now a cheesemonger's warehouse. There is a rather curious fragment by the churchyard, which Mr. Holloway thinks he has ascertained to be a house belonging to the Carmelite Friars. The other stations on the Hastings and Ashford Railway will be all at villages -very pleasant and picturesque many of them, but not of enough consequence to need distinct notices. |