“Heaven take thy soul, and England keep my bones!”
– William Shakespeare=====================================================================
(in one of the prettiest villages in southeast England) Rye is a town and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England, two miles (3 km) from the sea at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham , and the Brede. An important member of the medieval Cinque Ports confederation, it was at the head of an embayment of the English Channel, and almost entirely surrounded by the sea.
+ Rye is full of tourists and day-trippers. Yes, its high street is lined with such tourist magnets as art galleries, antique shops, little tea shops, and craft shops.
+ The town stands on a hill where the limestone ridge of the mainland meets the flat stretches of Romney Marsh. St Mary's Parish church tops the hill. Climb the church tower for views of the sinuous flow of the Rother across the marshes where the delicious salt marsh sheep graze. The church's clock is one of the oldest, still functioning church tower clocks in the country.
+ Rye was built where the rivers met. Water surrounded and protected it on three sides. It was one of two towns associated with the ancient Cinque Ports federation -- a group of seaports on the Kent Coast formed in the 12th century to provide military services to the Crown in exchange for such rights as charging tolls and collecting taxes.
+ Rye's early wealth and status came from its access to Rye Bay and the sea on the winding River Rother. But keeping access to the bay was a constant battle against tidal silt. In the late 1300s, a storm changed the course of the river and Rye was cut off from the sea, which really wasn't a bad thing. Before then Rye was the first town to suffer seaborne raids from France every time the English Kings and their Norman cousins had a falling out. In one raid, in 1377, the French invaders set fire to Rye and carried off eight church bells with their loot. A year later, a party of men from Rye and the neighboring town of Winchelsea raided Normandy and brought back the bells. (For many years, one of the bells hung in Watchbell Street to alert the town of French invasions.)
+ Today, the town center that was spared several centuries of battles when the river changed its course is a maze of tiny, steep cobbled streets lined with beautifully preserved medieval houses. If you wander along the prettiest streets -- Mermaid Street, Watchbell Street, and Church Square -- you will come across houses that claim they were rebuilt and refurbished in 1450. (Many of the oldest have steeply pitched tile roofs, tiny front doors and neatly maintained black oak timbers.) Some have names rather than numbers: The House with Two Front Doors, The House With the Seat, or The House Opposite.
+ Rye does make for a great weekend destination or a stop on a cycle or hiking tour of the Romney Marshes. It's also a good place to warm up with tea and a slice of cake after a bracing day on nearby, dog-friendly Camber Sands.
+ The town stands on a hill where the limestone ridge of the mainland meets the flat stretches of Romney Marsh. St Mary's Parish church tops the hill. Climb the church tower for views of the sinuous flow of the Rother across the marshes where the delicious salt marsh sheep graze. The church's clock is one of the oldest, still functioning church tower clocks in the country.
+ Rye was built where the rivers met. Water surrounded and protected it on three sides. It was one of two towns associated with the ancient Cinque Ports federation -- a group of seaports on the Kent Coast formed in the 12th century to provide military services to the Crown in exchange for such rights as charging tolls and collecting taxes.
+ Rye's early wealth and status came from its access to Rye Bay and the sea on the winding River Rother. But keeping access to the bay was a constant battle against tidal silt. In the late 1300s, a storm changed the course of the river and Rye was cut off from the sea, which really wasn't a bad thing. Before then Rye was the first town to suffer seaborne raids from France every time the English Kings and their Norman cousins had a falling out. In one raid, in 1377, the French invaders set fire to Rye and carried off eight church bells with their loot. A year later, a party of men from Rye and the neighboring town of Winchelsea raided Normandy and brought back the bells. (For many years, one of the bells hung in Watchbell Street to alert the town of French invasions.)
+ Today, the town center that was spared several centuries of battles when the river changed its course is a maze of tiny, steep cobbled streets lined with beautifully preserved medieval houses. If you wander along the prettiest streets -- Mermaid Street, Watchbell Street, and Church Square -- you will come across houses that claim they were rebuilt and refurbished in 1450. (Many of the oldest have steeply pitched tile roofs, tiny front doors and neatly maintained black oak timbers.) Some have names rather than numbers: The House with Two Front Doors, The House With the Seat, or The House Opposite.
+ Rye does make for a great weekend destination or a stop on a cycle or hiking tour of the Romney Marshes. It's also a good place to warm up with tea and a slice of cake after a bracing day on nearby, dog-friendly Camber Sands.
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