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Smeaton's Harbour
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A modern but misleading name for the New Harbour of Rye, an expensive catastrophic 18th.century project which aimed to join the waters of the Rother, Tillingham and Brede into a new channel at what is now known as Winchelsea Beach where remains of the outer channel, the east pier and the two pier heads are still visible. It took 63 years to build, was fully operational for perhaps 4 months and was abandoned in November 1787. John Smeaton FRS, known particularly for the construction of Eddystone lighthouse, was brought in as a consultant and reported in 1763, 39 years after work had commenced. |
The retreat of the sea, and the process of silting up, resulted in the abandonment of Winchelsea as a place of trade by the middle of the 16th century and the serious decline by the end of the century in the usefulness of that of Rye. So rapid was the retreat of the sea that Camber Castle, commanding the entrance to the harbours of both Winchelsea and Rye was abandoned in the 1640’s as it had ceased to serve any useful purpose.
| Frederico Genebelli, an Italian engineer, put forward a plan in 1593 for a western channel as a solution to the decay of the port of Rye; this channel is shown in this map based on Symonson’s map of 1594. (A copy of Symonson’s map hangs in Rye Town Hall).The corporation saw it as benefiting Winchelsea rather than Rye and refused further dealings with Genebelli. There was a steady polarisation of conflict between town and country interests in the 17th.century.. The former attributed the decay of the port to the inning of land by developers which hindered or stopped the scouring process of the tides and prevented navigation up the Appledore Channel. |
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The latter’s aim was to gain land, consolidate, protect and drain it and to confine the port to the south-west side of the town. In 1698 Commissioners of the Navy and Elder Brethren of Trinity House concluded that Rye’s harbour to be almost entirely lost and in no condition to be preserved.
It seems that the country interest prevailed for in 1723 an Act of Parliament provided for the making of a new cut or channel from Winchelsea Channel (the Brede) to the sea. This was the third in a succession of Acts in the 18th century dealing with the Harbour of Rye. For 63 years work on the New Harbour was spasmodically in progress but marked by incompetence, indecision, financial difficulties, rivalry and nepotism.
The prime source of information on the project for the New Harbour of Rye are the Minutes of the Harbour Commissioners. Correspondence, reports, accounts and papers have not yet been traced. The Minutes are often garbled and confused. It is by no means clear what the strategy or master plan was. John Smeaton writing in 1763 could only refer to ’what I apprehend to be the original scheme’, namely ’to bring the three rivers that now discharge themselves into the old harbour of Rye, through the new harbour’.
