RYE.
Three miles from Winchelsea is the ancient town of Rye, also enjoying similar privileges with the Cinque-ports, and has sent two members to serve in parliament since the forty-second of Henry the Third. It now, conjointly with Winchelsea, returns but one. In the same reign it was fortified with walls and four gates, namely, the Postern-gate, the Strand or Southgate leading to Winchelsea, Land-gate leading into Kent, which is the only gate now standing, and Boddings-gate. The north-east part of the town has been much injured by the sea undermining the hill, by which many houses were destroyed, with Boddings gate and the whole of the wall leading therefrom to the Land-gate.
It takes its name from the British word Rye, signifying a ford, this being the spot where the rivers Rother and Ree were fordable. Ipres tower, now used as a prison, was built in the twelfth century by William de Ipre, Earl of Kent. Below it is the battery, mounting eighteen guns, from which is a good view of the harbour.
In the first year of the reign of Richard the Second the French landed and burnt the town, together with the church, which was of great beauty : it was situated in the open space near Ipres tower. It was again visited by the French in Henry the Sixth's reign, when it is supposed the old records and charters of the town perished, as none older than his twenty seventh year, except some fragments, are to be found. Henry the Seventh visited Rye in 1488, also Queen Elizabeth in 1573, when on her tour round the coast. At the end of the rope walk is a spring at which the queen drank ; part of an old wall, with an inscription to denote the fact, is still standing over it.
