The Day We Went To Rye....Bugger Bogna

Rye is an attractive smaller town well worth a visit. It's been around since early Roman times with The Mermaid Inn dating back to 1156.

The Mermaid Inn

It's mainly a tourist place now with much of economy based on that with a wide range of antique shops, art galleries, gift shops, cafes and is also a renowned centre for ceramics.

Mermaid Street

Mermaid Street is one of the oldest streets in Rye and is famous for very old buildings, one of which was rebuilt in 1490,

 one that has 2 front doors, due to renovation of 2 houses, I presume,

 and the famous Mermaid Inn which was a coaching house in days gone by.

St Mary the Virgin is the Anglican parish church which has Norman origins. It's a bitty church, not particularly special, with perhaps the exception of the disobedient cat.

We went from Rye to Winchelsea which is a lovely village, quite well to do with a fabulous Deli and Butcher. Whilst there we just had to buy some French brie and a slab of Stinking Bishop cheese. Yum.
The village was also having an open garden day, probably about 20 gardens to view.
The history of Winchelsea is amazing. The town on the original site, believed to be in Rye Bay, in the 1260s had a population of thousands but a massive flood destroyed it in 1287. So the town folk moved to the present site where it flourished until the middle of the 14th century. It suffered French and Spanish raids until the 15th century and was then hit by the Black Death. A run of bad luck that was revisited in 1987 when the Great Storms came and blew down it's historic windmill.
 

 

This is one of the series of beacons that was lit across the UK, from Lands End to John O'Groats and from Great Yarmouth to Holyhead to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. This had been done once before at Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in1887.
We popped into the church where two young girls were rehearsing for a recital, beautiful voices. This church yard also houses the grave of Spike Milligan who lived nearby.

There was a rumour that written on his grave were the words
'I told you I wasn't well...' Sadly, this isn't true in the English word, however, there are Gaelic words inscribed on the tombstone, so possibly it is.