Landgate Square at the end of the C19th

The thoroughfare leading from Landgate Tower to the foot of Rye Hill has long been a busy one. For centuries it was the main route out of the town to the hinterland of Sussex and Kent and on to London.

However , the buildings on each side of King Street , as Landgate was known until comparatively recently, do not immediately suggest antiquity. The deceptive 18th and 19th century facades conceal a number of Tudor and Jacobean dwellings and this quarter appears to have been the first substantial community to establish itself outside the town walls, despite the fact that it was considered necessary to renew the portcullis in the tower as late as 1559.

What is usually referred to as Symonson's map of 1893, clearly shows a small settlement on either side of the road to the north east corner of the town and just outside the tower and the walled ditch - the Landgate Without. The beginnings of this development are also seen in John Prowse's work of 1572. On this and subsequent plans the outline of a three sided courtyard can sometimes be discerned and indentified as what we know as Landagte Square - a square in name only. It was once three sided but today it is completely open on the north and east. Centuries of building for residential and commercial purposes, gradually converted the area into a labyrinthine network of lanes and alleys leading off both sides of what soon became an urban street.