Rye Castle Museum

by Frank Palmer

The Borough Arms and the Ship Inn circa 1900

Of the earliest Inns and Alehouses little or nothing is known and all that exists are a few early cellars beneath later buildings. What we do know is that by the sixteenth century, the Inn and Alehouse was a significant part of the Rye scene.

As an important port of embarkation the town was always busy with travellers. Merchants and the military were crossing to and from France and all required sustenance and accommodation whilst awaiting the tide.  For example, Lord D’acre stayed at Le Crowne (at the corner of West Street and High Street) on the way to meet Henry VIII at Calais in 1520. In 1574 some twenty six Inns and Alehouses could be found with ninety four beds for strangers.  

The Tower Inn circa 1890

The occupation of licensed ale housekeepers was a privileged one and  found among the more affluent members of Society, often the town’s Jurats. One of these was Richard Pedyel, owner of the Mermaid, who died in 1536.

Yet earlier at the Cinque Ports Brodhull (the name for the meetings of the Cinque Ports Confederation) held at Romney in 1465, it is recorded that no Mayors or Bailiff sha1l retail bread or ale during his term of office. Likewise breweries, of which there were several, were expensive to set up and, therefore, the preserve of the more wealthy.       

The Red Lion cirfca 1860

At times Alehouses could be of considerable concern to the town authorities, because they provided shelter to vagrants and other suspicious persons, including ‘harlotts, hores and comon women’ (sic). Various Acts gave powers to Justices to deal with these, and an Act of 1495 gave powers to suppress Alehouses. Later, an Act of 1552 gave authority to the Magistrates to licence and suppress such premises.            

  In 1581 twelve ‘common dronkards’, were banned from every tippling house in Rye. At this time some of the Inns and Alehouses were:

The Mermaid
The Red Lion  (located  where the Further Education Centre now stands but burnt down in 1872)
The George and The Swan – both at this time in the Butchery (now Market Street)
The Three Kings in Middle Street (now Mermaid Street)
The Blew Anchor (later The London Trader and now The Borough Arms, at the Strand)
Whyte Vyne (in Longer Street now the High Street)

There were many others but the principle inns were the Mermaid, the Red Lion and the George.  These were often used by the Corporation for celebratory dinners. 

The George circa 1890

 However, the Mermaid had closed by the mid eighteenth century. Louis Jennings, visiting Rye in the 1870’s wrote,

The Mermaid — still I looked about for the Mermaid Inn, I roamed up and down Mermaid Street, over rough cobble stones, loathe to give up the search. . . . ‘ . . . at the helm A seeming mermaid steers’ .                                                             

At last I met an ancient man, who looked as if with a little effort of memory he might recall the Mermaid, or perhaps be the merman who married her.  ‘Ah Sir ‘, said he, with a sigh, ‘the Inn has long since closed. How curious you should ask for it. Gone ever so long ago, Sir’.

Throughout the centuries there were always some unlicensed presmises trading illicitly and it was the duty of the constables or Sargeant at Mace to bring the offenders before the Courts.   Fines and license fees brought in necessary income, so, despite pressure from the Privy Council in London to reduce the numbers of Alehouses, the Town Council tended to impose fines that were not too punitive and tried to persuade offenders to obtain a license.

 The brewers also had an interest in supplying as many outlets as possible. It is perhaps interesting to note that in 1609 four brewers were fined for supplying beer to unlicensed tippling houses;  two of these brewers were town Magistrates.

A glance at the Passage Book of the Port of Rye, shows that in the year 1635 many important persons sailed from Rye to the continent including merchants from London, Plymouth, Norwich, Hull, Bristol, Exeter and Barnstaple, as well as Scotland and Ireland. Some forty Inns and Alehouses offered their services in the town. However, at times this proved to be a mixed blessing.

The Kings Arms and the Pipemakers Arms circa 1890

 A  report to the Council of State in 1651 stated ‘the causes of injury to the trade of the ancient town, the multiplication of strangers and the superabundance of beer houses are alleged as the chief impediments to the prosperity of the market’.

Early in the eighteenth century we find; the Two Brewers (now the Queen’s Head) the Ship without Landgate (no longer in existence) and the Dolphin, Gungarden (pulled down in 1837) for the enlargement of the Rye Union Workhouse. 

However, in general the number of inns and alehouses was falling. The billeting of troops in the town was at times a source of difficulty. Many Acts of Parliament were passed over the years that attempted to control the problems of excessive drinking. This had an effect on the number of inns and alehouses in the town.

In 1830 another statute was passed, popularly known as the Duke of Wellington’s Beerhouse Act. This Act enabled any householder assessed to the poor rate, on payment of two guineas a year, to obtain an excise licence to retail beer from his own dwelling either on or off the premises. This was an attempt to reduce the abnormal amount of spirit drinking, but resulted in a considerable increase in the number of alehouses. 

The Jolly Sailor circa 1870

At the beginning of the twentieth century a number of inns were closed down because the police opposed the licence.

Those affected by this were; the Foresters Arms and the Swan, both in the Mint, the Jolly Sailor in Church Square, the King’s Arms in Cinque Ports Street, the London Stout House (formerly Sawyers Arms) in Ferry Road, the Borough Arms in the Strand, the Tower Inn in Landgate and the Oak in the High Street, amongst others.

Sources 

Records of Rye Corporation, 1962
Tudor Rye, Mayhew 1987
A New History of Rye, Vidler, 1934
The English Public House, Monckton, 1969
Sussex Archaeological Society Collections.

by Eric Wetherill

The Old Drill Hall was situated where the Fire Station is today, along the track and then footpath that leads from Ferry Road, along beside the Windmill, to the river.

In 1911, a Veteran Reserve was formed from the 5th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment, Cinque Ports Volunteers, because of the threat of invasion from Germany. The Drill Hall and Armoury in Mill Lane, Rye, was begun later in 1911 for the Reserve and was opened by Lord Brassey on February 27th 1912.

To the left, inside the building, was a .22 rifle range running its full length, and there are Ryers alive today who recall the Army Cadets and actually shooting on this rifle range. There were boxing matches and even dances held there. How many Rye couples first met in the Drill Hall?

It lasted in the capacity of a Drill Hall and meeting venue for fifty years, but closed its doors in 1963. It was then used by Reckett & Coleman, the manufacturer of polishes, who used the building for the next eight years. The building remained empty from 1971 until 1988, when it was demolished and the present Fire Station was built on the site.

by Ann Harvey

Rye Borough Police Force came into being in 1838. The Police Station was in a small cottage adjacent to the Ypres tower. The force consisted of two men, a Superintendent and a Police Constable. The Ypres Tower had three cells and a mortuary.

 The Sussex bonfire tradition, as in Lewes, had been getting seriously out of hand by the early 1880’s.

‘One bonfire night two rival bonfire gangs attacked the Rye police, badly wounding Superintendent Butcher; Constable Bowine tripped in the fight and badly injured his ankle, lightened tar barrels were rolled down the narrow cobbled streets, boats were set on fire, and citizens attempting to save their property were flung into the harbour.’ 1

‘In 1884 a determined an attempt was made to stamp out the influence of the bonfire gangs. Twenty five special Constables were sworn in to assist the Force (which still consisted of one superintendent and one constable) and magistrates were prepared to impose heavy penalties. A cache of tar barrels had been discovered and removed by the police. This exasperated the gangs and they attempted to take a boat from the shipyard of Messrs. Smith. They were fought off by Superintendent Bowine and Police Constable Henley with a force of Specials. Bowine received several blows ( he was certified unfit permanently in 1891 aged 46), Constable Henley’s helmet was also battered in. Six of the gang were apprehended and bound over for the sum of £10 and a surety of £5 to keep the peace for twelve months. This seemed to have the desired effect, and bonfire violence decreased and gradually died out.” 1

The 1888 Local Government Act  passed by Parliament required the Borough Police to amalgamate with the County Constabulary. It was decided to build a new Police Station in Church Square, with a lock up. This was finished in 1891.

What is now 16 Church Square was a private house built in the 18th century and was sold by a Mrs Skinner, a doctor’s widow, to the Police in 1890. It became the Sergeant’s house with a connecting door to the Police Station.

 The new Police Station had a charge room at the front of the house. The front door opened into a lobby and the cell block was directly after that, with a locked door from the lobby; the charge room opened from the right of the lobby. Behind the charge room was a room for the Constable’s kitchen and a sitting room, access to the staircase and the three brick domed cells. The Constable’s family lived upstairs. Beyond the back of the Sergeant’s house was a small exercise yard and the access to the garden which ran to the edge of the cliff (South Undercliff is below.)

 Continuing to quote from Mrs Palmer’s memories:-

The Police Station end of Church Square in those days (1910/1911) was very rough, mostly with fisher folk in Hucksteps Row. At weekends they had terrible rows as the men were usually drunk and the police used to go down to settle a few fights……The cells had somebody in most weekends crashing and banging about (a bit frightening for us kids!)

 Next door to our house was The Jolly Sailor. It had been a 4d. doss house but was closed down by the police and afterwards became a private house. (6)

Mrs Palmer also wrote that ‘the Sergeant in 1910 was a Scot, Sgt. Sinclair. He and his wife had about 10 children, several with bright ginger hair.’ How so many people could fit into that house is a mystery.

 In Rye’s War 1939 – 1945 (2), edited by Josephine Kirkham and published by the Museum, includes the ‘Recollections of Mr Moppett, Police Constable’. He came to Rye in 1939 and he says he was the last person to live in the Police Station before it was bombed in 1940. I can find no record of bomb damage although there well may have been blast damage from the bombs that destroyed the buildings where the present Rectory and its adjacent two houses now stand, next to the Ypres Tower and which blew out the East Window of St. Mary’s Church. Mr Moppett’s account of his duties and experiences during World War II is very interesting.

 Over the years the size of the Police Force increased; the old Police Station was closed in 1966 and the present larger Police Station was built in Cinque Ports Street.

 A Mr Stanynough bought the old Police Station but did little to it except getting planning permission to build a bungalow in the garden. Mercifully this never happened, nor did he live in the now private house. In the early 1970’s he sold it to an architect, R.W. Gray (5), who wanted it for his retirement years. He redesigned the interior, got rid of the lock-up (which must have been very expensive) and turned the house into two pleasant flats, one downstairs and one upstairs. The house could easily be returned to a family house if necessary.

© Ann Harvey

REFERENCES

1. Sussex Police Forces: a pictorial history from 1836 to 1986,  Middleton Press. July 1987

2. Rye’s War 1939 to 1945:  The Second World War in Rye  (Editor: Josephine C. Kirkham)  Rye Museum Association. March 2002

3. Frank Palmer , ‘Rye Borough Police’,  Rye’s Own.  No 150. January 2007.

4. Pre-and Post-World War II Aerial Photographs by Aero Films Ltd.

5. Papers from R.W.Gray Esq, and Burnhams, Rye.

6. Mrs Frank Palmer Sr. Childhood Memories of Rye and Winchelsea 1910 – 1918. [Mrs Palmer Sr's father was Constable Muggridge who served in Rye 1910 -1914/15 and then in Winchelsea till 1918.]

Colonel Frederick Sedley, 5th Marquis of Taflia in Malta and his links with the Alessi Family

 Colonel Frederick Sedley, 5th Marquis of Taflia, in Malta is commemorated on a bronze plaque over the iron grill doorway between the Friary and the church of St. Anthony of Padua in Rye.

As can be seen below, the plaque states that ‘he was a benefactor of the Franciscan order in England and of this church’. Historically, it had been suspected that he may have been responsible in some way for influencing the decision of the Franciscan Friars to come to Rye, to build a new church in ltalianate style and to dedicate this new church to St Anthony of Padua, a Franciscan. One major influence perhaps, could have been that an uncle, one of his mother’s brothers, Saverio Alessi, who was born in 1815, had become 3rd Marquis of Taflia and later a Franciscan Friar. Committed though Frederick Sedley may have been to bringing the Franciscans to Rye, he was to die before his wish came to fruition, for he died on 13th March 1921 in Badgergate, Rye, home of his daughter and son-in-law..

Why the Sedley family chose Rye as a place of residence is unknown. Frederick and his wife, daughter of an English vicar, had lived in Kensington where his wife died in 1899.   What is known is that  Frederick Sedley and daughter wereout of the country in 1906, and when they landed at Dover  they brought with them the Rev. Father Bonaventure M. Scebberas OFM Conv. as their chaplain;  he was a Franciscan. He was given the parish at Portishead near Bristol in 1907 and three years later he accepted the church of St. Walburga in Rye. The Catholic Times of 1st April 1910 records that ‘A fortnight ago the Very Rev. Fr. Bonaventure, Superior of the Friars Minor Conventual in England, arrived from Portishead to take charge of the new mission, and received a hearty welcome from the congregation, and also from many Protestants’.

The earlier church in Watchbell Street at this time was of course dedicated to St Walburga, but was, by 1926, proving to be too small for the growing congregation. By April 1927 definite plans had been drawn up and by July13th the demolition of the old church started. On August 9th. Fr Bonaventure laid the first brick. In October, Bishop Brown, the Auxiliary Bishop of Southwark, came on a visitation and blessed the new foundation stone.

The new church of St Anthony of Padua was officially opened on 30th June 1929. The architect of the church, as well as the magnificent high altar was Mr John B.Mendham ARIBA, and at the opening the Italian Ambassador was present. At the reception that followed, in the Mermaid Hotel, it is recorded that among others ‘the Marchesa della Taflia and her husband Captain Williamson-Wearing were present’. No doubt the Marchesa would have wished that her father could have lived to see this day. She and her husband left Rye to live in St Leonards where she was to die without issue in 1953. Hence the title of the Marquises of Taflia died out and the title became extinct.

In 1982 the Committee of Privileges of the Maltese Nobility called the title out of abeyance, with Joseph Sammut Testaferrata Alessi becoming the 7th and present Marquis. His daughter, and only child, is his heir, his line of descent being from the first Marquis’s other son.

In July 2006 a decision was taken to attempt research in order to discover more about Frederick Sedley and how he came to have this title.

Initially it was thought that Colonel Sedley was British and his title was British, but this was soon found not to be the case. He had, in fact, been born in Valetta on Malta on 18th September 1836 to a Frederick Sedley senior, a Maltese Government employee who had been born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Caterina Alessi, a minor, daughter of Dr. Francesco Alessi dei Marchesi di Tatlia LL.D. so his later title, as Marquis of Taflia, descended through his mother’s line.

With this information as background it was decided to extend the research to discover more of this family and how they came to have links to Rye and, specifically St. Anthony of Padua Church.

It is acknowledged that the Sedley family were not by any means the only major donors to St. Anthony of Padua Church in these early years. This paper was  produced simply in order to explore the background to the Sedley family and the Franciscan links to our church.

The results of this research follow herewith in an article  researched and produced in July 2006 by John Kilroy, 2,Saltcote Mews, Saltcote Lane, Rye, East Sussex. TN31 7NR. Tel. 01797 222971

Frederick Sedley and His Family

1805 Frederick Sedley born, Colombo , Ceylon now Sri Lanka

1825 A Mr Sed1ey, a clerk to the Chief Secretary, is recorded as living, rent free, at I, Strada Scozzese, Valetta , Malta, by authority of the local government.

1832 Caterina Alessi, a minor, married with the consent of her Guardian. She was the daughter of Dr. Francesco Alessi dei Marchesi di Taflia and was married to Frederick Sed1ey aged over twenty one years of age, bachelor, from Colombo ,Ceylon employed in the office of the Chief Secretary to the Government. The marriage was on 1st January 1832 and was celebrated by Anglican and Roman Catholic clergy.

10th October 1832 birth of Thomasina Antonia Sed1ey Alessi, later Marchesi di Taflia, to Caterina Sedley nee Alessi and Frederick Sedley.

1st August 1833 death of Fanny Sedley, daughter of Frederick Sedley, Inspector of Police. She had just returned from school in England

18th September 1836 birth of Frederick Sed1ey Alessi, later 5th Marquis of Taflia, to Caterina Alessi and Frederick Sed1ey 1st

28th June 1852 Thomasina Antonia Alessi dei Marchesi di Taflia, daughter of Frederick Sedley, Superintendent of Police in Malta , married Hon. Richard Cornwall – Leigh, Assistant to the Government of Malta, in the British Embassy. Later celebrated at the Church of The Madeline in Paris .

1856 Frederick Sedley II, a clerk in the Customs Department is living at 153, Strada Stretta. He is on the 1852 Electoral Roll

1860 during the China War of that year it is recorded that there is a “Cornet Sedley in B Troop as assistant Surgeon to Edward Mc Sheehy.”

22 November 1866 Mrs Caterina Sed1ey nee Marchesi Alessi died, she was the wife of Frederick Sedley I.

1871 Frederick Sedley II married Edith Fanny Langdon in Marlybone

1872 Daughter  Ethel Maud Sedley Alessi born ( later 6th Marchioness di Taflia). in Bellary, central  India.   

1880 Frederick Sedley II retired with rank of Lieut Colonel.

1899  Wufe Ethel Maud Sedley died in Kensington.

1901 In the 1901 UK Census, Frederick Sedley II is listed as being aged 63, born in Malta , a retired Colonel in the Army. He is living in Kensington.

August 1910 at a Parish Bazaar held at St Walburga’s Church in Watchbell Street , Rye, it is recorded that ‘Colonel the Marquis Sedley (sic) ran the pottery and ceramics stall while the Marchesina Sedley (his daughter) superintended the event and had special commodities ergo Maltese lace, pottery etc. sent by Mr Buggiba of Malta’.

1914 saw the beginning of the first world war and the arrival of refugees in Rye . It seems that the Marchesina Sedley formed a committee arranging for Henry James to make his studio in Watchbell Street available as a recreation room for them. When they arrived at Rye railway station they were greeted by Colonel Sedley, the Marchioness Sedley and the Rev. Father Bonaventure. Special services were arranged and they were accommodated in a hostel in Cinque Ports Street .

1916   Ethel Maud Sedley, Marchioness of Taflia, married Captain James Williamson Waring. JP

1918 & 1922 Kelly’s Directories of Rye for these years show Captain James Williamson – Wearing JP. listed as living at Badger’s Gate, Ferry Road , Rye .

18th March 1921 Frederick Sedley Alessi, 5th Marquis of Tatlia, died in Rye , East Sussex .

Upon the death of her father Ethel Maud Sedley Alessi became 6th Marchioness of Taflia.

Not long after the death of the Marquis, the Marchioness moved from Rye and settled in St. Leonards were she was to die thirty years later on in 1953

In 1953 the title went into abeyance. As the direct line was now extinct the next of kin was from the first Marquis’s other son, with the de jure Marquis, Dr. Giuseppe Borg-Falzon-Alessi MD, dying in 1978. Dr Giuseppe was succeeded by his first cousin Joseph Sammut Testaferrata Alessi. In 1982 The Committee of Privileges of the Maltese Nobility called the title from abeyance with Joseph becoming 7th and present marquis. His daughter and only child is his heir.