1998 London/Paris vacation [3]
We made a day trip from London to Rye on the coast (south-east of
London) which was a 2 hour train ride from Charing Cross Station. We
went to Rye as I had intended to go to Rye, rent a bicycle, and then bike
to Tenterden to try and find a
rememberance from 20 years ago which was given to me by a young girl in Victoria station and has been on my key chain ever since. Our cat
sitter (in Seattle) also highly recommended Rye. The village itself
has been preserved and is a favorite (apparently) for English
day-trippers.
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The roads are cobbled, the houses bricked and gabled and the sidewalks
tiny. This is a fairly typical cutesy street in Rye. To me it was a bit
too cute but I guess it's much more acceptable than the 20th century
village reality that we are used to.
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Some famous writers hung out in Rye - here Kerry is standing in
front of James Lamb's residence.
Ouch --- did I ever get this one wrong! But thanks to a
viewer in late 2001, here's the correct info: The Lamb house was so named
for the Lamb family of Rye which gave the town several mayors (including
the one who ended up judging the trial of the butcher John Breed who,
thinking he was killing the mayor, killed the mayor's brother-in-law
instead). The author Henry James lived there for a time.
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This is looking out from the "castle" towards the English Channel and Hastings
. I'm not sure of the history but Rye used to be a port on the channel and then
around 900 or 1000 the water receded and this is the view of what used to be
the sea.
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This isn't really Rye but the beach at
Hastings (Remember
1066 and all that the battle of Hastings?). We took a bus ride from Rye to
Hastings which is relatively large and quite the "lower class" Seaside
area - much like the area I grew up in - Rockaway Beach. A view of the
beach (pebbled and all) is much the same although this is the English
channel and not the Atlantic Ocean.
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This is the last of my photos for this page and yes it was on the previous
page. This was in the back yard of a mini-castle in Rye. The "castle" was
important back when there was a sea outside and the French were trying to
invade. It had it's arms and prison cells which made it memorable.
I got an interesting e-mail in the spring of 2000 from someone in the Midwest (USA) who told me that I was sitting in the cemetery of his ancestors - about
90% were his family. I didn't even see the headstones until I looked at the
picture again.
Oops I made another "goof" - (Thanks to a viewer in the summer of 2004 from the UK who actually grew up in Rye) The mini-castle I describe above is actually
St Mary's Church which dates back over 900 years!
Here's a better view of the front of the castle which I've borrowed from a
home page for Rye New York
which incidentally has some info about Rye England.
View of Rye England
For more information about Rye, look at the
Town of Rye site in the UK or a pleasant site about the Rye Nature Reserve.
Photos with Nikon/FM by Michael Hoodes - November 1998
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