Chapter II: Part 2

From the Cliff End here we have a choice of two routes: either we can proceed by road to Icklesham, a place well worth a visit for the sake of its interesting old church, and then on to Winchelsea; or, better still, we can tramp the few miles beside the old military canal, which serves to link up that town with the sea. This latter is certainly a delightful walk, and well worth the fatigue of an extended effort. As we drop down the slope, we note, on the lower ridges of the hills, Pett, the insignificant village which has given its name to the Level, or tongue of "polder", stretching away to Rye, and extending eastwards into that greater flat, the Romney Marsh; and, farther on, Guestling. Not hastily, however, must Guestling be passed by, for though the village is commonplace enough to the eye, the name is charged with ancient memories. Originally the "Guestling" was a sort of conference between the Ports and distant fishing colonies such as Yarmouth; but gradually it developed into a local Parliament held to settle disputes among the folks of the rival fisher towns as to questions of rights and privileges. It met in the church itself, and possessed a Speaker and something of the paraphernalia of full judicial power. Here is what the good old Jeake says about it in his ancient _History of the Cinque Ports_: "By the same name of _Guestling_, is also a Court called, that consisteth but of _part_ of the _Ports_ and _two Towns_, as suppose Hastings, Winchelsea, and Rye, raised upon request of one of them; where by consent, and as by brotherly invitation, they appear to agree on something necessary to their respective Towns."

The old canal, like the Martello towers, roused the scorn of Cobbett: "Here is a canal _to keep out the French_; for these armies who had so often crossed the Rhine, and the Danube, were to be kept back by a canal, made by Pitt, thirty feet wide at the most". But despite Cobbett's words it was no mean feat of military engineering for those days, as the following particulars, culled from Horsfield, the old county historian, will show: "The Military Canal, which was cut, during the late war with France, as a protection to the lowlands in the eastern part of this county and the adjoining portion of the county of Kent, by impeding the progress of an enemy, in the event of a landing on this shore, commences at Cliffe End, in the parish of Pett, and following the course of the rising ground, which skirts the extensive flat forming Walland and Romney Marsh, crosses the Roman Road near Hythe, and extends, in nearly a straight direction, along the coast to its termination at Shorne Cliffe, in Kent; a distance of about twenty-three miles. Its breadth is about twenty yards, and its depth three; with a raised bank or redan on the northern side to shelter the soldiery, and enable them to oppose the foe with greater advantage." Now everything is changed; this monument of warlike stupidity has become a haunt of peace. Thus has Time effected another of its little travesties.

Following the reed-grown, bird-haunted waterway, we skirt the peninsula on which the town is perched, and come finally to the foot of the road which winds diagonally up to the Strand Gate. Thus is the town entered by its most beautiful approach.

WINCHELSEA

Every spot in this delectable corner of England--Pevensey, Hurstmonceux, Hastings itself, Bodiam, Rye--is redolent of the triumph of change; but Winchelsea stands before us a perfect memorial to the futility of man's efforts against Nature, a tangible reminder of the irony of Time.

This ancient town, perched, like Rye, on a solitary hillock projecting into the midst of a vast plain, is, despite its years and its ruins, really a _new_ Winchelsea. The old town--the city proper--a prosperous place of seven hundred householders and fifty odd inns, lies beneath the ever-changing sea, some two miles (some say, five) south-east of the present site. Serious trouble began in 1250 with a great tempest, concerning which Holinshed writes: "On the first day of October (1250) the moon, upon her change, appearing exceeding red and swelled, began to show tokens of the great tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mightie, both by land and sea, that the like had not been lightlie knowne, and seldome, or rather never heard of by men then alive. The sea forced contrarie to his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yielding such a rooring that the same was heard (not without great woonder) a farre distance from the shore.... At Winchelsey, besides other hurt that was doone in bridges, milles, breakes, and banks, there were 300 houses and some churches drowned with the high rising of the watercourse." Not even then did the people give in; but from 1250 to 1287 Neptune and other sovereign powers descended mightily on the poor old town, and its tragedy was completed when, during an utterly disastrous tempest, the whole district between Pett and Hythe was inundated.

At this time Edward the First was Warden of the Cinque Ports, and the planning of the new town seems to have been to him and his associates a simple and congenial task. The present triangular plateau was chosen, falling precipitously on three sides, with its narrow end towards Hastings; and the new town was projected and begun on truly magnificent lines. Edward seems to have been quite a pioneer in the modern science of town-planning, for Winchelsea, like several other towns set out by him, was given an oblong shape, and this was divided up into thirty-nine or forty squares by means of wide streets intersecting at right angles.

On the north the town stood upon a cliff overhanging the Brede fiord; on the east the land fell away precipitously to the sea itself. At the north-east and north-west corners of the plateau, roads were made down to the sea, with quays at the bottom of each, and great gates, the Strand and Ferry, at the top. At the land end yet another gate was built, the New, and the extremity protected by a moat and stone walls. A castle was built, and full provision made for the resumption of the commerce of the port.

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Winchelsea stands upon a plateau, at the north-east and north-west corners of which roads were made down to the sea, with quays at the bottom of each, and great gates, the Strand and Ferry, at the top.

(_See page 49_)

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The various religious houses were reproduced as in the dead town, and ere long the lusty life of the old place began again in earnest. The town became self-supporting with its shipbuilding and fishing, and its galaxy of representative craftsmen, and offered a splendid channel for trade to and from the mainland. Being a serviceable defensive port, it rehabilitated itself as a rendezvous for the navy, and combined with that importance the added attraction of being the best base on the coast for pirates. So well was the latter occupation organized that we read of one of the mayors of the town--one Robert de Battayle--being caught red-handed and summarily punished for acts of piracy.

And what remains? Very little. At the northern end certain of the spacious streets are inhabited but generally grass-grown. These show the original divisions and dimensions; but southwards and westwards the majestic squares have become merely green fields, until at last the boundaries have been lost altogether. Ancient words of doom ring in our ears as we survey the scene: "Thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof.... They shall be left altogether unto the fowls of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them."

The church, or rather a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, admiral of the Cinque Ports. A short distance down the road, south-east of the church, is the mansion known as "The Friars": in its beautiful grounds stands practically all that remains of the religious houses--the ivy-grown ruin of the chapel of the Franciscan Monastery. With this mansion and with the brothers Weston, the rogues who dwelt in it, all lovers of Thackeray's _Denis Duval_ will doubtless be familiar. The gates of the town still frown down on the approaching roads; but wall, castle, quays, all are gone, and the place is now, to use Wesley's words, "that poor skeleton of ancient Winchelsea".

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The church, or a certain portion of it, still stands, with a generous margin of green surrounding it, and within its walls the fine canopied tomb of Gervase Alard, Admiral of the Cinque Ports.

(_See page 48_)

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And small wonder too, for every hand has been against it. At the time of its building the Black Death made its appearance, destroying countless inhabitants and dispersing the craftsmen. The town was sacked by the French in 1359, when three thousand entered with sword and torch. Again, in 1378, the same catastrophe occurred. In 1449 they visited once more, but did little damage. For by this time another enemy had set to work--the worst enemy of all. The sea, which in its inconstancy had made the new Winchelsea at the expense of the old, was calmly receding and leaving the Antient Town high and dry, with a perpetually increasing bank of shingle in between.

Now, as we stand at the Strand Gate, and watch the sea away to the south, with its ever-changing pageant of azure and amethyst, and as we turn about and enter through the old gate to walk the grass-grown streets, we laugh at Neptune's jest; but there is something tragic in the laughter.

RYE

Rye, as it stands, is the completest place in England. A little conical hill rises abruptly out of the encompassing marshes, and all around that little hill, wherever it can gain secure hold, clings the town. The tall houses rest tier upon tier, as if standing on tiptoe to get a better view of the approaching enemy; and the cobble-paved streets wind in and about, so that every available inch of space may be utilized for house or hanging garden. Crowning it all rises the ancient church with its high red roofs and tower.

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A conical hill rises abruptly out of the encompassing marshes, and all around that little hill, wherever it can gain secure hold, clings the town.

(_See page 50_)

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Probably the best approach is from Camber. We can tramp the three long dusty miles of the military road from Winchelsea, catching just a glimpse of the massive, low-lying structure of Camber Castle on the other side of the stream; or else we can take the road to the right, and, sweeping seawards, come round to the castle itself, pausing a while to wander about these walls which have stood the rough usage of the south-westerly gale so well since the time of the eighth Henry. Leaving Camber, the way across to Rye is hazardous. So many waterways intersect the shingly meadows that by the time we come out at the right place an extraordinarily tortuous path has been followed.

The history of Rye is much akin to that of the sister town, a story of one long succession of struggles against the two enemies, the sea and the French. Although the place was a natural stronghold by reason of its unique formation, yet, after a time, the necessity for artificial works was felt, and in the twelfth century a small tower, afterwards known as the Ypres, was constructed near the top of the southward cliffs, a square structure of two stories with a circular turret at each angle. A few years afterwards, in the reign of Richard the First, licence was granted for the building of a town wall; and still later, in the reign of Edward the Third, the fortifications were completed by the building of a gateway with portcullis at the north-east end of the town.

These fortifications were rendered necessary by the _inning_ of the shallows which separated Rye from the mainland, the sea having set to work, with the true ironic touch, depositing shingle where salt water was essential, and irrupting where it was most unwelcome. And, sure enough, as the one enemy did its worst, filling in the harbour and making access to the little hill more easy, so the other enemy took advantage of the facilities offered, and the raids of the French gradually became more frequent and more severe. In the fourteenth century things were parlous for the island town. When it was not the turn of Winchelsea, Rye suffered, and vice versa. They set upon the town in 1337 with no great success, but in 1360 they spoiled both Hastings and Rye. Immediately after the death of Edward they came again, and "within five hours brought it wholly into ashes, with the church that was there of a wonderful beauty, conveying away four of the richest of the towne and slaying sixty-six; left not above eight in the towne. Forty-two hogsheads of wine they carried thence to the ships with the rest of their booty, and left the towne desolate."

In 1378 the men of the Cinque Ports took some sort of revenge, according to the following interesting account in Fuller's _Worthies of England_: "May never French land on this shore, to the losse of the English! But if so sad an accident should happen, send them our Sussexians no worse success than their ancestors of Rye and Winchelsey had, 1378, in the reign of Richard the Second, when they embarked for Normandy: for in the night they entered a town called Peter's Port, took all such prisoners who were able to pay ransome, and safely returned home without losse, and with much rich spoil; and amongst the rest they took out of the steeple the bells, and brought them into England, bells which the French had taken formerly from these towns, and which did afterwards ring the more merrily, restored to their proper place, with addition of much wealth to pay for the cost of their recovery." But their triumph was short-lived, for in 1380 the place was again burned, despite the wall. Comparative quiet then reigned till 1448, when the last and most terrible invasion occurred. Then, according to Jeake, Rye was entirely burned, with the exception of the Landgate, the walls of the parish church, Ypres Tower, and the so-called Chapel of the Carmelite Friars in Watchbell Street. The town was devastated to such an extent that it was unable to furnish its quota of ships to the navy.

Then the sea encroached once more, and, washing away the cliffs on the east, destroyed the walls built under commission of Richard the First; and such was the condition of the town that Chaucer could write:

"As many another town is payrid and y-lassid
Within these few years, as we mow se at eye
Lo, Sirs, here fast by Wynchelse and Ry".

Folks discovered that by skilful artificial drainage they could assist the inning, and so obtain an additional field at the extremity of their rightly-acquired land. In 1724 we have Defoe writing: "By digging Ditches, and making Drains there are now Fields and Meadows where antiently was nothing but Water. By this means Ships of but a middle Size cannot come to any convenient distance near the Town, whereas formerly the largest Vessels, and even whole Fleets together could anchor just by the Rocks on which the Town stands."

But still, despite its struggles--perhaps by reason of them--Rye has always managed to carry on. It has had its systole and diastole of success; but, unlike Winchelsea, it has never given up the fight. Periods there have been when every hand has seemed against it; but times there have been too--the Commonwealth, for instance--when the town has enjoyed a compensating prosperity. It has fought for its existence, and it has survived; and there are no more apt words concerning the two Antient Towns than those of Coventry Patmore: "Winchelsea is a town in a trance, a sunny dream of centuries ago, but Rye is a bit of the Old World living on in happy ignorance of the New".

At Winchelsea the church is the centre of everything: you cannot move a hundred yards without coming into sight of it. But you might walk round and about Rye all day and not notice it. Shut away at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life, in its isolation it somewhat resembles a cathedral. But there the resemblance stops: there is no cathedral atmosphere. True, there is a quiet in the square, but it is not the cold ghostly hush of the close or the cloister. Instead, all is sunlight and warmth. The walls are grey, the buttresses are grey, the tombs are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-grown roofs, in full harmony with the surrounding mosaic of colour.

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Rye church stands at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life. Its walls are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-covered roofs.

(_See page 54_)

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Just below the churchyard, in the south-east corner, the Ypres (or, as it is called locally, the Wipers) Tower still stands, a squat, heavy-looking building, not altogether beautiful; and at the other end of the town the Landgate, the sole survivor of the town's five portals. Between these two, dotted about here and there in the winding, cobble-stoned streets, are buildings of great beauty, some unfortunately modernized on the outside. One is the old rubble-stone building in Watchbell Street, commonly known as the Carmelite Friary. It is an interesting specimen of a small mediaeval hall with chambers below, but its association with the order is now pretty generally recognized as a mistake. Steep little Mermaid Street--perhaps the most beautiful of all the quaint turnings--has two notable buildings, the Old Hospital and the Mermaid Inn. The Hospital is a fine timbered structure with huge gables. The Inn is a Tudor building, surrounding a tiny court. Little is to be seen from the road; but inside it is a charming old-world place, with latticed windows and massive oak beams, fine panelling and great fireplaces. In the stately red house at the head of the street Mr. Henry James for many years found inspiration for his wonderful studies of modern temperaments,--about as remote as possible from the atmosphere of the quaint little grass-grown street. Perhaps the most interesting of all the buildings is the Old Flushing Inn. It possesses some fine oakwork, but the greatest attraction is the quaint mural painting in imitation of tapestry, covering the whole of one wall, and dating from 1574. In olden days the place was a popular rendezvous among gentlemen of the "free trade", for in the rear it possessed a courtyard which extended right to the edge of the cliff--at that point practically vertical and about sixty feet high--and it was a simple matter to beach a boat just below.

In High Street, almost facing the turning which leads up to the church, is a dark red-brick building of the seventeenth century: this is Pocock's Grammar School, which readers of Thackeray will remember as the place where Denis Duval was sent to be educated. A little farther along we come to Conduit Hill, in which is situate the Ancient Monastery of the Austin Friars--a fair building, possessing that rare thing, flamboyant tracery. If the ghosts of the little brothers of bygone days ever return to their former haunts, they must be deeply grieved or intensely amused, for the building has been everything from a malt-house to a Salvation Army barracks.

As we leave the town a flood of questions surges into the brain, perhaps never to be answered. Why is it there is such an attraction about Rye? Why will men and women travel half across the world to see these crooked streets once more? Why should the very mention of the name conjure up such haunting memories of the past? There is very little in the place that is actually old--a gateway, one or two houses, a small tower, a church--yet the impression is one of remotest antiquity.

BODIAM

When in 1377, following on other successful raids, the French descended on Rye and sacked and fired the town, it became evident that Hastings could no longer afford sufficient protection to that stretch of the coast, or to the important river valley leading thence inwards; and the necessity for another stronghold was immediately realized. Thus did Bodiam come into existence.

It so happened that, at the moment when the defenceless condition of the Rother became apparent, there had come into the district a knight well skilled in all the military arts, one Edward Dalyngrigge, a member of an old Sussex family and brother to the sheriff of the county. Dalyngrigge had spent many years in France, and taken part in numerous expeditions, some of them scarcely creditable. Following a fierce but capable warrior, one ready for almost any emergency, he had learned not only the art of the soldier but also the science of the castellan. Now, Sir Edward was married to Elizabeth Wardeux, the heiress of the manor of Bodiam, and therefore possessed of the old moated manor-house some distance from the river. Consequently, in virtue of the necessity of the times, Sir Edward had little difficulty in extracting the licence to build a suitable castle.

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The castle is a ruin--a mere empty shell--but outwardly its towers and walls rise sheer from the lily-covered waters of the moat in a fine state of preservation.

(_See page 59_)

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The site selected was the left bank of the Rother, at a spot some thirty feet above the level of the water. Partly by excavation, partly by damming up, a great reservoir was constructed, 525 feet from north to south and 330 feet from east to west; and in the centre an island was left, a little over an acre in extent. On this island the castle was erected; and the basin was flooded from a little stream which the premeditating builder had previously diverted and dammed. Northward the ground rose pretty steeply from the moat, a circumstance which seems to detract somewhat from the strength of the castle, till we remember that the planning and building were done in the days before artillery had become the deciding factor in warfare. Southwards the ground fell away to the river, and because of this much doubt has been cast on the efficacy of the stronghold. It has been pointed out frequently that an investing army would have had little difficulty in piercing the bank of the basin; but there was no mediaeval siege whereby its strength might have been tested.

The castle was built in the form of a parallelogram, after the French model, with four strong curtain walls protected at the angles by boldly projecting round towers, 54 feet high and 29 in diameter. Three of the curtain walls had intermediate square towers, while the fourth, that on the northern side, had a double tower flanking the great gateway. Between this deep and well-protected portal and the land stood an octagonal platform on which was built an advance work, or barbican, the intervening spaces being bridged by drawbridges. Thus was the way into the castle strongly held by a succession of defences.

As we approach the castle now from any side, it is difficult to realize that it is a ruin--a mere empty shell. Outwardly its towers and walls rise sheer from the lily-covered waters of the moat in a fine state of preservation: curtain walls, round towers, square towers, battlements,--all are there as in the days that were. True, the drawbridges are gone, and of the barbican only a fragment remains; but of the great donjon itself nothing appears to be missing until--until we cross the causeway where once the drawbridge rose and fell, and so come to the interior. Then do we realize the antiquity of the place; for everything has crumbled to dust, leaving just here and there a suggestion of what has been--a window, a buttress, a fireplace. Lines from Lord Thurlow's sonnet come to mind:

"Thou hast had thy prime,
And thy full vigour, and the eating harms
Of age have robb'd thee of thy warlike charms,
And placed thee here, an image in my rhyme;
The owl now haunts thee, and oblivion's plant,
The creeping ivy, has o'er-veil'd thy towers;
And Rother looking up with eye askant,
Recalling to his mind thy brighter hours,
Laments the time, when fair and elegant
Beauty first laugh'd from out thy joyous bowers".

From the ruined fragments we mentally reconstruct the scene of the interior, the single courtyard in the centre, the two-story buildings all around with the chapel going up through both stories, and we note with astonishment the comparative convenience and comfort of the arrangements of the compact little fortalice.

Certainly Bodiam (or Bojum, as it is pronounced locally) is the most picturesque castle in the south, many say in the whole, of England. Nestling in the little valley, surrounded by luxuriant greenery, it has not the impressive grandeur of the stronghold flaunting its strength at the head of some precipitous cliff, or bidding defiance to the hungry seas, but it has a beauty more at one with the spirit of Sussex and the south.

And yet, Bodiam is a place of inviolate mystery. You can fall in love with its unique situation, with its delightful lily-covered, bird-haunted setting; you can be impressed by its note of artistic completeness; but always there is something of loneliness and horror about the place. Its walls are grey, but not with the grey of other castles. It is a cold, pitiless grey, no matter how the sun shine, no matter how the water throw up again the quivering light. There is a shudder in the air on the blithest summer day. Perhaps it is that places, no less than men, gradually take upon them a personality. If that is so, then surely Bodiam has taken the personality of its old founder, Dalyngrigge, a bleak enough man, if records speak truly, a man dark in deed and light of word.

At Bodiam we leave this Enchanted Garden; and as we go we begin to wonder that a place so rich in memories and in charm has no representative poet, or, indeed, school of poets. Sussex in general seems to have been sadly neglected by our singers. Kipling has probably sung most in her praises; but even for Kipling the great chalk downs have always been Sussex. And most of our other poets--Habberton Lulham, Arthur F. Bell, Rosamund Watson, Wilfred Scawen Blunt--have followed in his steps. Only occasionally has one ventured down into the marshlands and the low rolling hills and the little river valleys in quest of beauty. And yet beauty indescribable is here for the seeking. Probably the poet who knows us best is Ford Maddox Hueffer, whose volume, _The Cinque Ports_, contains some magnificent word-pictures of these happy little hills and dales, and whose novel, _The 'Half Moon'_, gives such a faithful picture of Rye of ancient days. The following fragment from one of his poems gives the marsh in all its beauty:

"Up here, where the air's very clear,
And the hills slope away nigh down to the bay,
It is very like Heaven....

"For the sea's wine-purple and lies half asleep
In the sickle of the shore and, serene in the west,
Lion-like purple and brooding in the even,
Low hills lure the sun to rest.

"Very like Heaven.... For the vast marsh dozes,
And waving plough-lands and willowy closes
Creep and creep up the soft south steep;
In the pallid North the grey and ghostly downs do fold away.
And, spinning spider-threadlets down the sea, the sea-lights dance,
And shake out a wavering radiance...."

We close with a short passage from the volume on the Cinque Ports. It was written concerning the old military canal at Winchelsea, but in its brooding spirit of contentment it applies but little less to the whole of this wonderful area. "Nowhere is one so absolutely alone; but nowhere do inanimate things--the water plants and the lichens on the stiles--afford so much company. It must not be hurried through, or it is a dull, flat stretch. But linger and saunter through it, and you are caught by the heels in a moment. You will catch a malady of tranquillity--a kind of idle fever that will fall on you in distant places for years after. And one must needs be the better, in times of storm and stress, for that restful remembrance."

End of Project Gutenberg's Hastings and Neighbourhood, by Walter Higgins