Winchelsea when we first hear of it as given by King Edward Confessor to the monks of Fecamp, was not set upon this hill-top as we see it to-day, but upon an island, low and flat, now submerged some three miles south and east of the present town.  Here William the Conqueror landed upon his return from Normandy when he set out to take Exeter and subdue the West; here again two of those knights who murdered St Thomas landed in their pride, hot from the court of Henry their master.  Like Rye, its sister, to whom it looked across the sea, Winchelsea was added to the Cinque Ports and was presently taken from the monks of Fecamp by Henry III.  It was now its disasters began.  In 1236 it was inundated by the sea as again in 1250, when it was half destroyed.  Eagerly upon the side of Montfort it was taken after Evesham by Prince Edward, and its inhabitants slain, so that when in 1288 it was again drowned by the sea it was decided to refound the town upon the hill above, then in the possession of Battle Abbey, which the King purchased for this purpose.  At that time the hill upon which Winchelsea was built, and still stands, was washed by the sea, and the harbour soon became of very great importance, indeed until the sixteenth century, when the sea began to retire, Winchelsea was of much greater importance than Rye.  The retreat of the sea, however, completely ruined it, for it was served by no river as Rye was by the Rother.

The town of Edward I., as we may see to-day, by what time has left us of it, was built in squares, a truly Latin arrangement, the streets all remaining at right angles the one to the other.  It had three gates and was defended upon the west, where it was not naturally strong, by a great ditch.  It was attacked and sacked by the French as often as Rye, though not always at the same time.  Thus in 1377, when Rye was half destroyed, Winchelsea was saved by the Abbot of Battle, only to be taken three years later by John de Vienne, when the town was burnt.  No doubt these constant and mostly successful attacks deeply injured the place which, after the sea had begun to retreat in the sixteenth century, at the time of Elizabeth’s visit in 1573, only mustered some sixty families.  From that time Winchelsea slowly declined till there remains only the exquisite ghost we see to-day.

One comes up out of the Marsh into Winchelsea to-day through the Strand Gate of the time of Edward I., and presently finds oneself in the beautiful and spacious square in which stands the lovely fragment of the church of St Thomas of Canterbury.

This extraordinarily lovely building dates from the fourteenth century.  As we see it, it is but a fragment, consisting of the chancel and two side chapels, but as originally planned it would seem to have been a cruciform building of chancel, choir with side chapels, a central tower, transept and nave.  It is doubtful, however, whether the nave was ever built, the ruins of the transepts and of two piers of the tower only remain.