A Lady in London

Yesterday I traveled to the medieval town of Rye on England’s southeastern coast. A two hour train ride from London, Rye is an intimate, picturesque town near the sea. I say ‘near’ the sea and not ‘on’ the sea because much of the town’s history hinges on its relationship with the fickle body of water to which it owes its great beginnings and its historic preservation.

Rye began as a successful port city in medieval times. Around the 15th century the town lost favor with the English Channel, who decided to desert the city and move two miles south. The wily body of water left Rye with nothing but silt and a small river to serve as a cruel reminder of a relationship that once was.

True to the times, the bereft Renaissance Rye reinvented itself as a tourist attraction. Refurbished in the late 1400′s, many of the buildings in Rye remain frozen in time. From the Church of St. Mary with its Romanesque beginnings to the Tudor-style inns on Mermaid Street, Rye today appears much as it did a century ago. And the century before that. And the one before that, and so on.

I spent a couple hours walking through Rye’s small cobbled streets. The low houses with their whitewashed walls and wooden trim were quaint and charming, as one would expect from a story-book town.

Speaking of story-book towns, I’m not the only writer (or the only American, for that matter) to fall under Rye’s enchanted spell. Among others is the little-known American writer Henry James. His readership was nowhere near as wide as the eight people that read my blog, but hey, not every American can move to the UK and expect to find gainful employment.

I enjoyed my trip to Rye, but like the channel, my relationship with the town had to come to an end. In lieu of silt and a river, in my wake I left the 3GBP I paid for a mediocre bowl of vegetable chowder (apparently the houses aren’t the only things stuck in the 15th century).

Usually when I leave a place I take a last look, reminding myself that things will be very different the next time I make my way to its nook of the world. I don’t think I have to worry about that with Rye.