Rye – Janet's Adventures in Waterstones

Rye is an historic town located near the coast in East Sussex, known for its pretty medieval streets and historic buildings. It was an important trading port during the Middle Ages. A wall was built around the town in the 1300s with four gates, Landgate, Strand Gate, Postern Gate and Baddings Gate. Of these, only Landgate remains today. Rye has many literary connections – the authors Henry James, E F Benson and Rumer Godden lived in the town (in Lamb House – see below), as did author Radclyffe Hall, best known for the novel The Well of Loneliness. Like Deal, Waterstones is called The Rye Bookshop. It’s located in the High Street in the main shopping area of the town in a Grade II listed building. As you can see, it had scaffolding up when we visited.

Rye 6th Dec 2023 (1)

Rye map

Lamb House (National Trust)

The American author Henry James lived in Lamb House from 1897 to 1914, and E F Benson, who became the town’s Mayor, lived there from 1919 until his death in 1940. I forgot to take a photograph of the front of Lamb House on this occasion, so some of these photos were from a visit we made in 2015 in the summer, as you can see by the difference in the foliage. This time the house was decorated in the style of a 1970s Christmas in honour of Rumer Godden who lived there from 1967 until 1974.

St Mary’s Church Tower

After leaving Lamb House, we went for a wander around the town, and spotted some people on top of the church, so we went in and paid to climb the tower. The climb was… interesting, as there were some skinny, low-ceiling passages to negotiate, and some steep ladders, which made my legs a little wobbly, but it was worth it for the amazing views of the surrounding area from the top.