Rye

Discussions the night before about where to go had quickly centred on Rye. It was an attractive town with lots of historic and interesting buildings including Lamb House NT and was a short distance from the sea and a nature reserve.

We parked near to Rye Windmill, providing a waymark for our return, and were soon in the town centre exploring the shops and side streets and walking up to Rye Castle, affording views of the River Rother as it traversed the marshes to Rye Harbour. Rye was one of the Cinque Ports but following land reclamation and natural changes is now two miles from the English Channel.

EF Benson lived at Lamb House when he wrote his Mapp And Lucia books set in Rye under its fictional name of Tilling. Lamb House NT was not open but instead we found the Summer Exhibition of the Rye Society Of Artists nearby and found that very varied and interesting. Bob Marley's great grandfather Frederick was born in Rye back in 1820, and Spike Milligan lived nearby in Dumbwomans Lane at Udimore.

We wandered down to the Quayside before walking up Mermaid Street and having lunch at the Mermaid Inn, an old inn notorious for smuggling activities in previous centuries, and reputedly riddled with secret passages to aid the smugglers.

After lunch, we drove on to Rye Harbour Nature Reserve and walked along the path to the coast beside the gulls, where the Rother reaches the sea. Although only a short distance along the coast from Bexhill, where we had been the previous day, the coastline was starkly different and photogenic in a dissimilar way.

To round off the outing, we stopped on the way back at Brede High Wood, which lies between Brede, Sedlescombe and Staplecross, for a half hour stroll.

The evening was marred only by unwittingly standing up an old friend. She was staying in Battle that weekend but due to a mobile phone message mix-up our rendezvous never happened.

L.
12.9.2013

Blip #1050
Consecutive Blip #003
Day #1253

Alternatives:
Spot The Buddha (for Dritanje)
White Dove At St Mary's
Church Square
The Rother At Rye Harbour

Rye (2013) (Flickr set)

Lenses: Pentax 18-55mm, Sigma 70-300mm

Sea series
Coastline series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Blood, Sweat & Tears - You've Made Me So Very Happy (1969)
Their reworking of this Motown Brenda Holloway original.

One year ago: From The Flagstones (Lacock Abbey)