Rye

Rye was almost an island, a sandstone hill in a tidal bay, and as an Ancient Town attached to the Cinque Ports confederation it supplied ships to the crown in exchange for privileges. French raiders burned it in 1377. Then the sea left: silting through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries pushed the coast two miles away and ended the port, which is why the town is preserved, since nothing was rebuilt on the trade that stopped coming. Mermaid Street is the set piece, a steep cobbled lane of timber-framed and tile-hung houses with names like The House Opposite. The Mermaid Inn, rebuilt in 1420, was the base of the Hawkhurst Gang of smugglers in the 1730s. Henry James lived at Lamb House from 1897, and E F Benson, who set the Mapp and Lucia novels in a thinly disguised Rye, followed him there.

What you actually see

• Mermaid Street - a cobbled lane of timber-framed and tile-hung houses.
• The Mermaid Inn - a 1420 building used by the Hawkhurst smugglers.
• Ypres Tower - a thirteenth-century fort, later the town gaol, now a museum.
• Lamb House - Henry James's home, later E F Benson's.

When to go

April to October; the town is small and fills with day visitors from late morning at weekends, so early or late is better. The Rye Arts Festival runs in September. Winter is quiet and atmospheric.

Honest expectations

Mermaid Street is short, steep and treacherously cobbled, and it is a residential street where people photograph doorways all day. Parking is limited and charged. The town is genuinely small and seen in a few hours.

Nearby

Camber Sands lies east; Bodiam Castle and Hastings are inland and west.