The sleepy hilltop town of Rye looks almost chokingly picturesque. Chocolate-box-charming, the cobbled streets, half-timbered cottages, elegant Georgian town houses, olde-worlde shops and Norman church are steeped in bucolic Englishness and sugar-coated nostalgia. Hard to imagine this land-locked paradise was once the bad boy of the southern realm; the 18th century smuggling capital of England….
Category: Towns, Cities and Villages
Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s Grand Tour
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a good costume must be in want of adventure… Halfway through Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, heroine Elizabeth Bennet takes a vacation with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner to the Derbyshire Peaks, home to a certain Mr Darcy. Before visiting the fictional Pemberley, Miss Bennet…
English Civil War Centre
Both politically and geographically, the English Civil War (1642 – 51) shaped the country we know today. Nine years of fighting followed by a Commonwealth government meant no English monarchy could ever regain the absolute power rulers once enjoyed. The Divine Right of Kings had been severed with the head of Charles I and the…
The Rakish Charms of Rye
The sleepy hilltop town of Rye looks almost chokingly picturesque. Chocolate-box-charming, the cobbled streets, half-timbered cottages, elegant Georgian town houses, olde-worlde shops and Norman church are steeped in bucolic Englishness and sugar-coated nostalgia. Hard to imagine this land-locked paradise was once the bad boy of the southern realm; the 18th century smuggling capital of England….
Stones and Stories 