It is the Landgate which gives to Rye its power of surprise, so that a man coming up from the railway, at sight of it, is suddenly transported into the Middle Age, and in that dream enters and enjoys Rye town, which has never disappointed those who have come in the right spirit.  For besides the monuments of which I have spoken there are others of lesser interest, it is true, but that altogether go to make up the charm and delight of this unique place.  Among these I will name Mermaid Street where the grass grows among the cobbles and where stands the Mermaid Inn and the half timber house called the Hospital, Pocock’s School and Queen Elizabeth’s Well.  Better still, for me at least, is the life of the river and the shipyards, where, though Rye is now two miles from the sea, ships are still built and the life of the place and its heart are adventured and set upon the great waters.

So alluring indeed is this little town that one is always loath to leave it, one continually excuses oneself from departure.  One day I delayed in order to see the famous poem in the old book in the town archives which I already knew from Mr Lucas’s book.  It is certainly of Henry VIII.’s time, and who could have written it but that unhappy Sir Thomas Wyatt who loved Anne Boleyn—­

What greater gryffe may hape
Trew lovers to anoye
Then absente for to sepratte them
From ther desiered joye?

What comforte reste them then
To ease them of ther smarte
But for to thincke and myndful bee
Of them they love in harte?

And sicke that they assured bee
Ehche toe another in harte
That nothinge shall them seperate
Untylle deathe doe them parte?

And thoughe the dystance of the place
Doe severe us in twayne,
Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace
Tyll we doe meete agayne.

Then one sunny afternoon I went out by the road past Camber Castle across Rye Foreign for Winchelsea on its hill some two miles from Rye to the west.

There is surely nothing in the world quite like Winchelsea.  Lovelier by far than Rye, not only in itself, but because of what it offers you, those views of hill and marsh and sea with Rye itself, like I know not what little masterpiece of Flemish art, in the middle distance eastward, Winchelsea is a place never to be left or at worst never to be forgotten.  One comes to it from Rye on a still afternoon of spring when the faint shadows are beginning to lengthen, expecting little.  In fact, if the traveller be acceptable, capable of appreciating anything so still and exquisite, Winchelsea will appear to him to be, as it is one of the loveliest things left to us in England, place, as Coventry Patmore so well said, in a trance, La Belle an Bois dormant.  Nowhere else in England certainly have I found just that exquisite stillness, that air of enchantment, as of something not real, something in a picture or a poem, inexplicable and inexpressible.  How spacious it is, and how quiet, full of the sweetness and the beauty of some motet by Byrd.  History is little to us in such a place, which is to be enjoyed for its own sake, for its own unique beauty and delight.  And yet the history of Winchelsea is almost as unique as is the place itself.