Southern England Travelogue: One Week in Rye and East Sussex

First, just to get our bearings – this is where Rye is located in East Sussex (south-east England):

Getting there

If you are flying, you would normally travel via London – and if possible, it is best to fly into London Gatwick, as you are already south of London and have less than an hour and a half’s drive by car (rental car) ahead of you. From London Heathrow it takes a little longer, with the route taking you along the “Orbital”, the M25 ring motorway with its many traffic jams.

We have chosen to travel by car from Germany and take the ferry from Calais (France) to Dover. We reach the ferry port quickly and, at 2 pm, there is hardly anyone around and everything is perfectly organised anyway: first stop at the “Office” – we have booked in advance and can even take an earlier crossing. We are told which lane to join and first pass through French border control (exit) and then straight through English border control (entry). That’s it – a quick look at the papers and thank you very much. Soon we are on board, leave the car and “enjoy” the hour-and-a-half crossing. The weather is rainy and stormy – right up until ten minutes before entering Dover harbour. Just as we pass the famous white cliffs of Dover, the weather suddenly clears!

The white cliffs of Dover welcome us!

Another welcome – Hello Gully (English for seagull)! The gulls flew past at arm’s length.

Arriving in the South

Once off the ferry and past a few “Drive on the left” signs, we head through the roadworks in Dover and onto the motorway,  continuing a good country road until we reach Rye in East Sussex and our accommodation there. It is a small cottage at the end of a little row of tiny houses and can only be reached on foot. Inside, it is almost like a dolls’ house, with undisturbed access to our own little front garden, and it is less than a minute from the High Street with all its shops and many tourists – fortunately, the latter are only around during the day. In the evenings and at night, the town belongs to the locals and is wonderfully peaceful.

Rye at night in Church Square

Rye at night – the High Street

Rye at night – the entrance to our cottage is on the left

Our first day, Saturday, greets us with glorious sunshine. So we head into town and climb the church tower!

Rye High Street in the morning – still completely free of tourists

Rye from the church tower

Rye from the church tower – in the background, you can already see the sea (the English Channel)

Inside Rye church tower – the impressive bell mechanism

Exploring East Sussex

We then drive quite a way to Borde Hill Garden – and even on the way there, masses of bluebells greet us along the roadside. Luckily, we are here at just the right time for these flowers, which are completely unfamiliar to us, and they dominate the woodland area of the garden too.

Bluebells along the road

In Borde Hill Garden

Borde Hill Garden – the manor house (not open to visitors)

The obligatory afternoon tea in glorious sunshine

In the garden, the “Little Ritz Tea Garden” invites us to enjoy the obligatory tea in the sunshine. And remember: in England, the crockery does not have to match!

The mini tea garden at Borde Hill

Unfortunately, the weather then deteriorated a little. But as always in England, the sun is never far away and the light just after rain is particularly beautiful. So we stopped in Battle (the site of the Battle 1066 of Hastings) and got a good look through the camera at the entrance to the former abbey grounds and the site now used as a school.

The entrance to the former abbey (Hastings 1066)

Battle (Hastings 1066) – the site now used as a school

Sunday (May, 1th) also brought glorious weather and brilliant sunshine. This time we went to Pashley Manor Gardens, which was not really a good idea because of the long weekend in England (today’s public holiday is being observed tomorrow, the so-called “Bank Holiday”!): a rather small, completely overcrowded and currently fairly unspectacular garden. The only really interesting photographic subjects were the superbly made sculptures.

Sculpture at Pashley Manor Gardens

We preferred to continue through the “Weald“, the rolling countryside of Kent and East Sussex. The scenery is lovely, and the little villages are great fun too – especially in this wonderful weather.

Out and about in Kent and East Sussex

By the way: NOT A SINGLE ONE of our pictures has been digitally altered!!!!!!

As we still had time and already had the highly recommended annual membership of the National Trust , we also drove to Scotney Castle . There we had already been some years ago, but this time the weather was much better at this manor house with its landscaped park and artificially created romantic ruin (!).

Scotney Castle – the manor house

Scotney Castle – the artificially created ruin in the landscaped park

Sometimes you really feel as though you have been beamed back in time:

Scotney Castle – people strolling

And sometimes you simply stand there in awe of genuine wonders of nature:

Scotney Castle – what an impressive tree!

In the evening, we had a lovely live concert at our favourite pub in Rye, the Ypres Castle Inn with a few local artists. Great atmosphere, and we were right in the middle of it!

There is bad weather in England too! Just drizzle and wind, but still decidedly unpleasant. So Monday became a leisurely day with nothing more than a guided tour of Rye – although that will have greater consequences on Wednesday! Besides, there were already hundreds of photos to look through and, above all, sort out…
Nevertheless: if you would like to experience Rye on a great guided tour, get in touch with Mike, a local guide.

Tuesday was another dream of a day – and we got up specially at 4:55 am (!) in the morning!! (bloody early in the morning!!!) to be at the beach at 6:25 am in time for sunrise on the dunes of Camber Sands at the beach. Let’s put it this way: it was worth it! ;-)

Sunrise over Romney Marsh, viewed from the dunes of Camber Sands

The first warm rays of sunshine reach Camber Sands beach

Beautiful landscapes of sand, shaped by the tide.

The protagonists of this trip – pretty happy despite the early hour!

But what is this? A BAVARIAN Beach Grill. Ouch!

A lovely encounter in the morning on the way back to Rye

For the rest of the day, we headed north, already well on the way towards London: first to Ightham Mote, a wonderful old house, and then on to Emmetts Garden. The latter impresses with its huge expanse of bluebells – highly addictive!

The first view of Ightham Mote

Ightham Mote – the entrance side

Inside Ightham Mote – a mix of styles through the centuries, with each room from a different period.

Endless bluebell woods in Emmetts Garden

The fine weather just keeps going! In the morning, we meet in the nearby village Winchelsea with guide Mike – on Monday, we spontaneously asked him whether he would give us a private tour there. He was surprised, but just as spontaneously agreed. Perfect! And so, for two hours, we explored a village of 400 inhabitants that was once one of England’s most important ports, with thousands of residents. You would never know it now; it is a wonderfully peaceful and completely quiet place. But it was also a centre of the wine trade, and around 50 wine cellar. He had one opened specially for us and we were able to go inside.

Later, we also visited Pevensey Castle, the ruins of a late Roman and medieval fortification.

Pevensey Castle – the entrance to the inner castle

Not far from the Castle, we managed to capture three essential elements of British tourism in a single picture:
history, a pub beer garden and the ever-present, exceptionally clean toilets!

British tourism: history, beer garden and toilets

Have we mentioned that the British can sometimes be a little peculiar? And wonderfully pragmatic at the same time! Take this example: what was here first, and which has more right to stay? Better not to take sides – just make the best of it.

Street lamp in a tree in Winchelsea

Not that this sort of thing surprises anyone. It is simply perfectly normal. These wonderful roads are normal too:

Street in Winchelsea – this was actually built-up urban land a few hundred years ago!

As Mike said: spring in England means lush green fields dotted with white – the sheep. And some of the lambs are particularly lovely:

England in spring

You could spend whole days like this! But we also went further west to Alfriston im Cuckmere Valley – another beautiful old village with a large Village Store that was exceptionally well stocked.

The High Street in Alfriston

We had tea in the delightful Tea Garden of Litlington in glorious sunshine, where we also enjoyed some excellent cucumber sandwiches:

Tea garden in Litlington

Cucumber sandwich, a classic afternoon snack

Our destination was the highlight of the first week: the white cliffs of “Seven Sisters” near Eastbourne. Quite frankly: forget the famous cliffs of Dover!

The Seven Sisters near Eastbourne

The Seven Sisters in East Sussex

In front of the Seven Sisters – the evening shadows are getting longer…

Finally, we went a little further to Beachy Head – we had to make the most of the evening atmosphere:

at Beachy Head near Eastbourne

Flower power in the last light of day

West of our home in Rye lies Romney Marsh , an area of land created by sedimentation over the past few centuries. Very flat and not necessarily beautiful in the traditional sense, but somehow quite interesting too. We were already here in 2011, so this time we focused on a ride on one of the smallest public Railways of the world . And by small, we certainly do not mean the length of the line, but the size of the trains:

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway is built to a scale of 1:3 – but it is a public railway!

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway really does provide a regular passenger service and (except in winter) is operated daily with steam locomotives dating from 1927. This year we travelled north to Hythe and back in glorious sunshine – in proper style, in one of the mostly open carriages attached to each train, with no windows and no doors! Two people can just about sit side by side. It is quite a strange sight when, at perfectly ordinary level crossings protected by full-size barriers, such a tiny train crosses the road at 50 km/h:

1:3-scale trains regularly cross the road

It was Thursday, the day on which elections are held in England – this time local and regional elections. So the Polling Stations were signposted too, here in the pub in St. Mary in the Marsh:

St. Mary in the Marsh – everything you need: church, post box, telephone box and polling station (in the truest sense of the word). “Free House” means that the pub does not belong to a brewery and can choose for itself which beers to serve.

Like so many of its brothers, the telephone box is no longer in use:

The telephone box now simply contains a vase of flowers!

We then continued north, where one of the surprisingly numerous english vineyards . As fans of good Austrian wine (white wines from southern Styria and red wines from Burgenland), we could not resist finally tasting some English wine too. Because: you practically never get it in restaurants! So we visited Biddenden Vineyard and worked our way through the selection. Admittedly, it is simply too cold up here for full-bodied red wines, but the whites were perfectly respectable! What surprised us was the very low acidity – we had been expecting a “Heckenklescher”, as the Austrians so wonderfully call it. Quite the opposite, though: really not bad at all. Two bottles came home with us.

The vineyard is somewhat larger after all, but these vines are where the history of the winery began in the 1970s.

Finally, we visited the almost inevitable garden – Hole Park . It is a very private garden: you park on the grass along the drive and there is no ticket hut either. If someone is there, fine – if not, please put the money in the box.

Entrance to the garden at Hole Park

As we explain under “Sale on Trust” . But here we are at Hole Park: the Formal Garden has a tennis court and a swimming pool, so you almost feel as though you are in a private garden. A very beautiful one, incidentally! Unfortunately, nature is four weeks (!) behind schedule this year, as the nice lady at the vineyard told us earlier. So the wisteria is still a long way from flowering, which means the garden’s real highlight is missing. But in return, the woodland area in a small valley is absolutely covered with bluebells and white-flowering wild garlic. Incredible!

Wild Garlic Walk in Hole Park

Bluebell field at Hole Park – you simply have to stop and rest!

The first rhododendrons are only just coming into flower – that is how late we are this year!

And so our week in Rye is over far too quickly, just as we feared. But of course, there will be more travelogues to come!

We have personally visited all the places, sights and gardens featured in our itineraries and have written about them in detail on this website. We hope that, after exploring Southern England for yourself, you will be just as captivated by this beautiful part of England as we are!