With particular thanks to Jo Kirkham (Rye Parish Church), Parish Church Council of St Mary the Virgin, Rye (1289-1989 Welcome to St Mary the Virgin Rye) and Brian Hargreaves for his line drawing of church from the southeast.
The Early Years
The hill on which Rye stands has been dominated by the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin for nearly 900 years as many ar artist has shown.
- Watercolour by W H Borrow
The Domesday Book, completed in 1086, implies that there was already a church in Rye. La Rie, as it was then called, was only a small fishing village, part of the extensive Sussex coast lands called Rameslie held by the Abbot of Fecamp in Normandy, and the church would have been a Saxon wooden one on or near the site of the present church. What we know more certainly is that after the Abbot, William de Ros, came to look at his possessions in 1103, plans were made to build a stone church and a hospital at Rye.
By about 1120 the chancel and stone tower had been completed, and over the next 100 years transepts, crossing, nave and finally two side chapels were added, reflecting the development of building styles: Norman (the chancel) Transitional and Early English (arches of the nave).
- Church abuilding
The church was built by local men, under the supervision of master masons and craftsmen from the Abbey. The basic design has survived, but over the centuries the church has been enlarged, attacked and ravaged by fire, repaired and altered many times, both inside and out.
The church has sometimes been called The Cathedral of East Sussex. The reason it was built on such a grand scale is that Rye was becoming an important member of the Cinque Ports Confederation–towns which were allowed a fair degree of self-government in return for supplying the king with a navy. The Federation was important even before Henry III regained possession of Rameslie lands in 1247 by exchanging them for lands in Gloucesteshire and Lincolnshire, away from the coast. He wished to prevent this coastal area from being used as a base for invasion as it had been in 1215 when Louis, Dauphin of France, landed at Rye without much resistance. (One part of the reclaimed land is still known as ‘Rye Foreign’.)
1377 Disaster
The worst disaster to befall the church occurred in 1377 when the town was looted and set on fire by French invaders and the church was extensively damaged. The roof fell in and the church bells were stolen and taken off to France. Resistance by Ryers seems to have been feeble and some of the leading inhabitants who survived the incident were subsequently hanged and quartered as traitors by order of the Mayor and the King’s Bailiff.
However, the next year the men of Rye and Winchelsea retaliated by sailing to Normandy, setting fire to two towns and recovering much of the loot, including the church bells. One of these was hung in Watchbell Street to give warning of any future attack; it was only returned to the church in the early 16th century.
Change and Decay
During the Reformation in the 16th century the interior of the church was stripped of its rood (cross), images and ornanemts and much of the church property in the form of land was confiscated. In the reign of Queen Mary (1553-58), the roodloft and ornaments were restored but, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 , the churchwardens dutifully removed them again.
From 1562 Rye willingly gave shelter to large numbers of Huguenots fleeing from persecution in France and in 1582 there were over 1500 people of French extraction living in the town, whose total population was about 3500. For a time they had their own ministers and held their own services in the church but, by the end of the century, they attended the ordinary services. In 1685 a further 50 Huguenot families arrived after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Some of the Huguenots’ descendants worship in the church to this day.
On the whole, the inhabitants of Rye seem to have accepted civil and religious changes with equanimity and to have attended whatever form of service was offered in their parish church. However, the long series of religious quarrels and the loss of church revenues did lead to the neglect and decay of the building and in the late 17th centurhy the chancel was said to be ‘very ruinous’.
In 1701 the vicar and churchwardens petitioned the king for financial assistance, saying that the church was so ruinous that people were afraid to attend services. In the end, enough money was raised to complete the most essential work by the end of 1703.
Some thirty years later major repairs were again undertaken and in the ensuing years the churchwardens were constantly patching the roof and dealing with minor repairs.
The Many Uses of the Church
There were no pews or seats in the church in the early days and the church was used for everyday activities as well as for religious purposes including dramatic performances of Bible stories. In Tudor times the Resurrection Play was performed a Easter and in 1523 a shilling was paid ‘for a coate made for him that in playing represented the part of almighty god’ and ‘ three shillings and fourpence for making the stage’.
By the middle of the 16th century when more services were taking place in the nave than in the chancel, the north and south chancels were cut off from the main building. In 1569 the town’s guns and gunpowder were being kept in the south chancel and in addition, at the time of the Armada (1588), gun wheels were kept in the churchyard . In 1637, a complaint was made that the church contained ‘arsenals, prisons and places of execution of punishment’.
The cistern or Water House in the northeast angle of the churchyard is a major architectural feature of the town; it faces the side of Church Square formerly known as Pump Street. It was built in 1735 and is considered a first class example of Georgian brickwork. It has been likened to ‘an oval tea-caddy with a lid on’. The ‘tea-caddy’ sits on a domed structure which in turn caps the actual reservoir which is below ground. The water supply was pumped up Conduit Hill through elm pipes from what became the town’s Soup Kitchen and later, public lavatories.
At the time the Water House was built, Market Street was the Butchery. The Assembly Book of 1754 reported that calves’ feet had been found in the reservoir, endangering health, and that anyone thereafter discovered throwing ‘dirt, dust, soil, trash, nastiness or anything else’ would be prosecuted.
St Mary's from the southeast
Still later, the south chancel was divided into two floors, and the upper floor became a school for pauper children. According to one report in the 1830s children were marshalled there by an old parishioner twice a day either for the purpose of instruction or amusement we know not’ but ‘ the hubbub which prevailed’ led to wonder whether any knowledge was acquired. The etching shows the schoolmaster and his pupils in 1851 leaving by a door which is now blocked up.
The reporter goes on to say that at other times the pauper sick were taken to the south chapel e ‘ for quietness’. The remains of the school’s fireplace can still be seen high up on the chancel wall. There were other uses still in Victorian times: as a factory where workhouse inmates were employed in spinning, and as a soup kitchen.
The north chancel has also been used for a variety of purposes: as a store for the town’s lumber and builders’ ladders, a home for the town fire engine (now in the Rye Museum), and, it is thought, a hiding place for smuggled goods. In 1854 it was ruled that burials within and outside of the church should cease; henceforth Rye Cemetery was to be used for burials. Until that time, people were buried in the north chancel and two of the graves feature in a famour Rye story.
Pillory and gibbet cage with skull of John Breads
Next to one another lie Allen Grebell–murdered by mistake in 1742 by John Breads, a butcher. At the time Grebell was the deputy mayor. Dressed in the mayor’s cloak, he was returning from a function attended on behalf of his brother-in-law, mayor James Lamb, the intended victim.
Various explanations have been offered: revenge for being fined by the mayor for giving short weight, mental illness, the Rye smuggling mafia diverting attention from their activities…. Nevertheless, from 1792 to 1862 the murderer and his victim were both in the north chancel as John Breads’ skeleton, in an iron cage, had been moved there from Gibbets’ Marsh.
In 1862, when the chancels were re-opened, the iron cage and its contents were removed to the Town Hall. At about the same time the pillory and ducking stool, fire engine, lumber and ladders were also removed.
Victorian Restorations
In 1883 an extensive restoration scheme was begun. The church was once again in a dilapidated state. The nave had been covered with a flat plaster ceiling, concealing the fact that the clerestory windows had been boarded up. The walls were considered dangerous.
With Victorian thoroughness, the restorers set to work to put things right. The nave was re-roofed, an entire new clerestory constructed, the walls strengthened, the west door–from which people are leaving in the 1851 photo above– was blocked up and a clean sweep made of much of the interior. A careful comparison of the two pre-restoration photos with what one sees today will reveal a number of external changes
There has been much criticism of the drastic reconstruction. One eminent architect asserted that the church, as an historic building, had suffered more from the misguided zeal of the restorers than it had from the French and the Puritans during previous centuries. It is considered fortunate that plans to bring the transepts up to Victorian standards were dropped.
Post World War II Restorations
The next major restoration programme was started after the Second World War. Although the only visible damage of h= the war was the loss of the East Window in a bomb blast, closer inspection revealed that much of the fabric was in a bad state and an extensive restoration programme was begun in 1948 which still continues. Some of the repairs such as the rebuilding of the buttresses on the south are obvious. Others, like the major operation of tying the north transept walls to the tower, work on the walls, restoring the entire roof, strengthening the tower and renewing flooring are less visible though no less important.
Repairs will always be needed to this still impressive church so full of history, but it is hoped that never again will it be ‘so ruinous that the people are afraid to attend’. Today the church plays a major role in the life of the town as a fitting venue not only for services but also for classical music concerts and other activities which bring the community together.
-
-
Church from Lion St
The Tower
The bells stolen by the French and subsequently recovered are not the ones in the Tower today. In 1775 the orignal bells were recast and two new ones added. Together, the eight bells and their clappers weigh nearly five tons. The church still has an active bell-ringing team.
The ‘new’ clock was made in about 1561-62 by the Hugeunot Lewys Billiard who was paid 30 pounds for his work .It is one of the oldest turret clocks in the country sill functioning. The exterior clock face and the Quarter Boys which stand above the dial were added in 1761.
- Church Clock and Quarter Boys
Another feature of the tower is the golden weather vane which dates from 1703. From its beginning, the tower has been used as a lookout and a landmark for sailors, visible from Dungeness to Fairlight, Today a climb to the Tower is one of Rye’s most popular tourist attractions, offering views over the entire red-roofed town, the surrounding landscape including Romney Marsh and the rivers, and out to sea.
Next: What to look for inside the church
![MermaidStSchool[1]](http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MermaidStSchool11-300x276.jpg "MermaidStSchool[1]")
![MermaidStSchool[1]](http://www.ryemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MermaidStSchool11.jpg "MermaidStSchool[1]")
