Monday 25 July 2022

Exploring :: The South East #2 ... Rye

Hello again everyone 😀

It was Sunday and the first full day of our week's stay in Kent. The weather forecast was ok-ish and we opted to head across the border to East Sussex for a visit to Rye. It wasn’t too far and it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit … having spent many a childhood hour lost in books about a group of kids’ adventures in Rye and the Romney Marsh area … they were very akin to The Secret Seven/Famous Five kind of thing, but I had no idea who had written them.

We parked up at the bottom of the town on the quay area, where we mooched around the vintage and antique shops, wishing we had enough room in the car to be able to buy some huge tin planters for the garden.

We started by walking back up the Main Street passing Tudor buildings …

… quaint and quirky shops … the kind where everything is lovely and you just wish you could buy everything, but none of it is really what you need ...
... inviting places to sit and eat ...
… and intriguing alleyways …
I just had to call into a book shop to see if anyone could tell me the author of the books that I’d loved as a child. They knew exactly what I was talking about and I was given the name of Malcolm Saville, with no hesitation whatsoever. Sadly his books are no longer in print so I couldn’t have a browse but I was delighted to find the answer to my burning question.

We walked as far as the town wall …
… before making an about turn and heading back and taking a left down the prettiest old cobbled street …
… towards the old water tower …
… passing the church …
… and ending up at Rye castle …
… where we did experience just a few spots of rain.

From the castle we headed back through the churchyard …
… which was surrounded by pretty streets …


… and pathways …

We ended up at Lamb House … A Georgian house with literary associations …

As far as National Trust properties go it’s a small one, but it was definitely worth a look and had the largest garden of any of the properties in Rye …
… Sadly no tea room to visit though … and we would definitely have prevailed ourselves.

We made our way back to the car via Mermaid Street, the very famous and picture-perfect cobbled lane filled with half-timber framed houses and Georgian residences.

The cobbles are not the easiest to walk on but there were certainly some beautiful properties to see ...
... and some very pretty front doors ...
We decided it was time to find somewhere nice for our picnic and headed for the closest piece of coast that looked like it might fit the bill.


We ended up at Winchelsea Beach ...
In spite of being lovers of the sea and the majority of our beautiful coastline coast, it wasn’t somewhere that any of us will be rushing to visit again … still … it served its purpose …
We'd had a lovely day. Rye had more than lived up to my expectations and definitely one ticked off of the '50 Things to do before I hit 60' list 😀

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6 comments:

  1. Oh my........what a beautiful town. Pity we missed it when down that way some years ago. I loved all your photos, so thanks for sharing them. I'm not a fan of pebble beaches, but then we are spoiled with mostly soft sandy ones, though we do have a few composed of never ending rocky shoreline/headlands too. Take care & hugs.

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    1. It really was lovely. We are just back from Cornwall ... lots of beautiful sandy beaches there, which I much prefer than the pebbles :)

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  2. In 1985, when I first arrived in the uk, my gran took me to Rye for the day - and your photos took me right back😊 wow what a blast from the past!!

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    1. Thanks Kate. Glad to have invoked some happy memories. It's certainly a lovely little town with something interesting to find around every corner ... and down every alleyway :)

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  3. Wow, I never realised Rye was so lovely. I've never been there and yet I lived in Kent between the ages of 6 and 17. Excellent photos as usual.

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    1. Thank you B. It really did not disappoint, which can sometimes happen when you really want to visit somewhere ... a bit like us with Deal I guess. Take care :)

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