The Landgate, Rye dates from around 1339 when the powers that were in Rye decided that they need a gate and walls to protect Rye from the sporadic invasions from the French, who managed to burn the whole place down, with only a few stone buildings remaining. We were there early before the shops opened to get this photo sans traffic.
But as you can see there were still plenty of cars about. Rye seems to have been captured by the French and settled by them several times. We’re all a bunch of mongrels on these British Isles between the Viking invasions and the Norman, Saxon and Angles too, there’s really no such thing as a ‘foreigner’. Not that you would believe that if you witnessed how many times we had to repeat ourselves whilst in England, despite not having strong accents – which is more than could be said for many of the people questioning us! It reminded us of why we only stuck it out in the south of England for a couple of years. I must say that I’ve never NOT been able to understand any accent if the person is speaking English – even if they originate on the other side of the world, so it puzzles me how anyone can be so insular.
From there it’s a fairly short walk, albeit uphill to Ypres Tower which is nothing to do with the battle in France in WW1. This was used as a prison until the middle of the 1800s for both men and women. Only in comparatively recent times were the sexes separated. The mind boggles at that!
The view in the photo below is the side which would have been nearest the sea.
People who didn’t ‘deserve’ to be imprisoned might just be stuck in the stocks for a length of time where they might be targeted by people who weren’t so unlucky. They wouldn’t have been throwing tomatoes at them I’m sure.
From the top of Ypres Tower you can see one of the local rivers which will lead to the sea, eventually. The sea has receded about two miles since Roman times I believe.
I think that the presence of three rivers in Rye probably goes some way to explaining how popular the town is as so many people love messing about in wee boats on rivers.
The tower in the photo below is what was the women’s prison when they were eventually separated from the men. It’s not very big so I hope there weren’t that many of them.
A narrow lane from the castle/tower takes you to The Castle Inn which no doubt supplied plenty of beer to the prisoners over the years. Smugglers who were due to be hanged were taken there for their last two flagons of beer.
Yes, I was always baffled by the number of Londoners who claimed they couldn’t understand me when I lived there – I really don’t have a broad accent at all. These pictures are lovely – I wonder if the sea will return with climate change.
FictionFan,
I think they do it to make us feel bad but I just think they must be idiots. When I worked in Essex an older woman used to hand the phone to me if there was someone on the other end who didn’t have a cockney accent. She just wouldn’t make any effort at all and her accent was appalling.
I agree on the accent side. My wife and I have soft (Inverness area) “educated”, Scottish accents yet need to repeat or eeenunnnciiiaate here in Shropshire. I even taught at St. Andrews University for several years and lived in England for several more, so it is highly unlikely that I am unintelligible. No, the fault lies with the listener as you imply.
H,
That would put me off living in Shropshire. My mother always said that the Inverness accent was the purest form of English and I think she was right. Maybe we should just assume that they must be deaf and shout at them saying we didn’t realise they were hard of hearing. I somehow think they would give up supposedly not understanding anyone with a different accent from them.