Ascent/Descent:
negligible
Net
Walking Time: ca. 5 ½ hours, Toughness: 5 out of 10
Take
the 09.37 Dover Priory train from St. Pancras (Stratford I’nal
09.44), change at Ashford (10.14/10.25), arriving Rye 10.46.
Return
trains:
xx.48 (69 mins journey time). Buy a Rye (Sussex) return, with High Speed Surcharge.
New walk by someone who beat me to writing up a walk involving Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, let's be checking it out, as it sounds promising...
Perched
on its sandstone outcrop, the medieval hilltop town of Rye was an important member of the Cinque
Ports confederation. However, great storms in the 13thC
changed the coastline in this part of the south-east and the town now lies
3 km from the sea, at the confluence of three rivers. A small fishing
fleet at Rye Harbour maintains the town's tenuous link with the sea, and the
many places with ‘salt’ in their name testify that it was once a centre for
preserving the catch.
The
walk consists of two loops around the town in a Figure-of-8, with stretches
alongside all three rivers. The northern loop is across the undulating Wealden
countryside between the Tillingham and Rother rivers, a varied landscape of
sheep pasture, arable farmland and orchards, ending with a riverside stretch on
the edge of Walland Marsh. The southern loop has a completely different
character, taking in part of the large area of reclaimed land between the Brede
and Rother rivers designated as Rye Harbour
Nature Reserve, “a mosaic of shingle, saltmarsh, saline lagoons,
coastal grazing marsh, freshwater gravel pits and reedbeds”. In between, the
town's historic centre (known as the Citadel) has so many attractive buildings
that there is an extra loop around its cobbled streets to appreciate them.
The
walk also reveals the threats of invasion over many centuries, a consequence of
Rye's vulnerable location on the English Channel. In the town itself Ypres
Tower (pronounced Wipers) and the Landgate are remnants of
its fortification against French raids in the Hundred Years War. The same enemy
also led to the construction of forts such as Camber Castle in the Tudor
period and many Martello Towers in the Napoleonic era. Concrete
blockhouses and pillboxes scattered around Rye Harbour are reminders of a
different enemy in the last century.
Walk
Options:
Both
the morning and the afternoon loop of this long version of the walk can be
shortened. For details please consult the webpage linked below, or the walk
directions pdf.
Lunch: Plenty of options in Rye, plus one pub earlier on in Iden. See the webpage or the pdf for details.
Lunch: Plenty of options in Rye, plus one pub earlier on in Iden. See the webpage or the pdf for details.
Tea: Plenty of options in
Rye, see the pdf for details.
For
walk directions, maps, height profiles and gpx/kml files click here.
T=swc.365.a
1 comment:
Pleasingly, Southern have indeed taken to running longer trains on the Marshlink line, so the connecting train was busy but had seats for all. We started in sunshine and found the initial route north out of Rye quite interesting, with some views and interesting buildings and churches. The next section (River Rother to Iden) was a touch less interesting I felt as it basically is just flat pastures without views and the odd bit of woodland. At Iden we stopped for refreshments at The Bell.
The return route to Rye is more undulating and therefore more rewarding. All in: a good start to the walk.
We'd been 7 off the train, with 1 other coming in from Brighton who had his train running out of fuel!, so was stuck in Hastings for a while and was always behind the group all day. At the lunch stop in Rye, the garden of the Ypres Castle pub, we were met by two others though: one was unable to make the posted train, so had planned to be an hour behind but then saw that train cancelled (the one that run out of fuel en route to Ashford?), so now being 2 hours behind, abandoned the idea of doing the morning loop altogether; and [you probably expect this] the walk author was also waiting to join us for the afternoon loop, i.e. n=10.
The sky was now more dominated by grey clouds and at one point it even threatened to rain, but it never did, not where we were anyway (you could see sheets of rain not far away though at various times). That made for big skies and beautiful cloudscapes over the marshes that came next after an extensive meandering loop through Rye itself: the enormous Camber Castle, lakes, bird hides, shingle deserts, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, the Sea. Very enjoyable this although the long last stretch back along the coast and river Rother to Rye Harbour is entirely along tarmac. 2 took the shortcut in the marshes (i.e. the normal walk route), while the Walk Author and the picknickers had left first from the Ypres Castle pub anyway and we only met them again just before the William the Conqueror in Rye Harbour, where we then had a well deserved break at an outside table, now again with blue skies. Still 40 minutes to walk from there back to the station, catching the 18.48 (apart from 1 walker who is overnighting in Rye). w=mostly-sunny
All in: very little overlap with the other walks in/around Rye, and a fine walk at it (and with loads of blackberries).
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