Walls and Gates of Rye

I thought it would be fun to find the walls and gates of Rye, and this was slowly done during our stay. But it was just so hot that progress was very slow!

Brief history

Rye was owned by the Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy until 1247, and in 1289 the town was given a charter by Edward I in return for military service to the Crown, and established as one of the Cinque Ports[efn_note}https://saxonhistory.co.uk/history/cinque-ports-southern-england[/efn_note] and given tax advantages. This was at a time when the town was a port, on the sea, not surrounded by land as today, and two miles away from the sea.

In 1339 the French attacked the town, perhaps prompting the construction of the walls and gates. In1377 they attacked again, apparently burning down almost every building in the town.

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Town gates

There were apparently four gates in the walls, and I will start at Strandgate, at the bottom of Mermaid Street.

The Landgate was built in c.1330 and the Ypres Tower is Mediaeval, but dates on the internet are not consistent.

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Town walls

There is not much of the old walls still to be seen apart from a stretch behind the houses on Cinque Ports Street, joining the Strand Gate and the Landgate. And at the end of the stretch of wall, at the bottom of Conduit Street, there was the Postern Gate.

From the Landgate the road called Hilders Cliff and then East Street runs along the top of the almost vertical cliff to the Ypres Tower and what seems to be another small piece of wall. The tower dates from 1249 when it was called Baddings Tower.

From here, Church Square and Watchbell Street run along the top of the cliff.

At the end of the road, at the Hope Anchor Hotel, Traders Passage leads down the edge of the cliff to the Strand Gate.

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This is a very brief overview of the walls and gates of Rye, and it is brief because the heat mitigated against any serious work! And I am not entirely sure how the defence on the cliff side of the town was organised and tried to relate it to old walled towns we had seen in Europe, such as Zamora.