19/05/07: Rye

Upon Tui's (Too-ey's), my new Marg's, suggestion, I took my bike onto the train and got myself to Rye to see what it had to offer.

It was a lovely day. The weather was temperamental – warm one minute and cold the next. Rye is one of the Cinque Ports in Kent. It’s a lovely little town where the streets are cobbled and every house has a cute name above its door; some of them more traditional, like ‘Durrant house’, some of them short and to-the-point, like ‘Christopher’s’, and some more adventurous like: ‘The house with a seat’, ‘The house with two front doors’ and ‘The first house on this street’.

I spent some time looking at the lovely kitch shops and stuff, then went to St Mary’s Cathedral, where I paid £1 to get into the bell tower. Uber Quasimodo feel! Bells everywhere, narrow passages – on a much smaller scale of course, but still: you get the whole ‘am-bi-yonce’ of the story, you know? The stairways and corridors were so narrow that I was genuinely surprised that I made it through. They were as narrow as, if not more so, than an ordinary step-ladder. The top of the tower offered a panoramic view of the entire city. You could see the gates, the salts, the castle, the little houses, the people – everything. It was gorgeous -- check out the photos.

After looking into the Cathedral itself, I went to check out Ypres Castle. It’s only a small little thing, but it was pretty. It was also locked up and they appeared to be renovating it, so I couldn’t see too much.

The highlight of my day would have to be Camber Castle. It was originally an artillery fort built by Henry VIII to guard Rye. But because the shoreline had receded so much since that time, the ruined castle stands surrounded by grazing sheep in what is now the middle of a paddock. Unlike most castles listed under the English Heritage trust, this one has not been restored or maintained save for what’s needed for public safety. It remains strangely unaltered.

There is actually a town not too far from Rye called Camber. So I started riding the 4 miles or so towards it in search of this ‘Camber Castle’ I had read about. The weather started to turn. You could hear the thunder rolling in and it became quite dark. I must admit, I got a little nervous. I usually do during storms. Thankfully, I was blessed with two X chromosomes, which allowed me to ask a man walking his dog for some directions towards Camber Castle. Apparently there’s no such thing as a Camber Castle in Camber. Camber Castle is in Rye. Of course! How silly. Why on earth would one put Camber Castle in the town of Camber?!

One really shouldn’t ask a man for directions. He sent me on wild goose chase for a path that doesn’t even exist. I had to ask a woman who was able to point me in the right direction. Just off the main road, there’s a little street. Behind a shrub on said street, there’s apparently a sign, that tells you to follow another little path, which will take you through someone’s farm (make sure you close the gates behind you), and if you follow the path from the gate, you should be able to see the castle after a while. If you knew to look behind the shrub for the sign, that is.

Very few people obviously came down this path because if it weren’t for some tyre tracks left from farm machinery, it would have been hard to realise it led to a supposed tourist attraction. I peddled my bike through the grass, thinking happy thoughts while ewes and their little lammies ran away from me, and the skies started to clear. But it was hard to do so when I had to keep trying to skirt around lumps of moist, soggy sheep manure. I couldn’t just ride over them because they would’ve splatted all over my back. The smell was anything but ‘fresh country’.

I think what made the whole experience of Camber Castle great was the solitude. There was not a single soul around for as far as my eyes could see. Just me, the sheep, the blue skies, the green grass, and the ruined castle. I climbed the walls of the castle and took some shots before walking back.

While waiting for the train, I got some fish and chips from the small kebab shop at the edge of the town. The man behind the counter laughed when I asked if I could bring my bike in because there was nowhere to lock it up outside. He told me to just leave it because no one steals around here. ‘You leave there for three weeks,’ he said with a thick accent, ‘and you come back is still there’. Hmm. Rye’s got to be a pretty decent place to spend you time if the local kebab shop owner can say something like that huh?