Month: August 2001

History For Sale at Rye Auction Galleries

 

First published in “Rye’s Own” August 2001

History Under the Hammer – Rye Auction Galleries

The story of Commander Frank Claret told in photographs, ship reports,
newspaper clippings, telegraphs, letters and ships papers reflecting
the eventful life of a British transatlantic liner Captain both before
and after the First World War and of his exploits as a wartime merchant
navy Skipper when his ship, the Minnehaha, was fitted with a four
inch gun and used to transport arms and munitions across the Atlantic. Continue reading History For Sale at Rye Auction Galleries

Winnie – The Last Article

Winnie Hollands died on Sunday 10 June 2001. The last of this article was written on the 6 June 2001.

Adventures in Rye

By Winnie Hollands

“The war in Europe is over”. When those words came over the radio we all cheered. Rye was ablaze with bunting and naval ratings from their base at the New Road School charged around the town kissing all the girls and attempting to drink the pubs dry. One sailor climbed the front of the The Olde Bell Inn and tied a rope round the bell tongue and sounded the bell for all his might, until the tongue came out, crashed down and almost killed him. Two Navel Officers careered round the town in a red triumph sports car until they hit a curb and broke the front suspension. It was a mad, glorious day. Continue reading Winnie – The Last Article

Top of the Tide

Highest recorded water level at Rye

On Wednesday 2 February 1983 a tidal surge due to weather conditions
in the North Sea meant that what should have just been a rather high
tide suddenly grew an extra 4 ft, and at 16.5 ft came over the shingle
bank at the Broomhill end of the village, blocking the road and cutting
off the electricity. Rye fireman were down there pumping out until
well into the morning, and a considerable amount of damage was done
– some of it to holiday homes whose owners could not be immediately
traced; more than a dozen houses were effected. This Wednesday tide
was the highest ever recorded for the area, but the SWA’s sea defences
held everywhere and the only serious damage was at Camber.
The golf course presented a most attractive scene – less attractive
when the water finally receded leaving its debris to be cleared from
the greens. On the other side of the river, there was an inch of water
over the floor of the Rye Harbour Sailing Club, and dinghies normally
parked beside the clubhouse well clear of the river were washed to
the Camber side, one ending up on the old tramway track. A fishing
boat was blown on to the harbour wall, and had to be pumped out when
the wind capsized her back into the falling river.
In fact it was fortunate that the tidal surge did not come two days
earlier, on the Monday when the predicted tide was even higher, The
police and members of the public spent the middle of that day pushing
back into the Tillingham channel boats which might otherwise have
been stranded on the quayside when the tide went down. Tidal surges
are not that uncommon, but they only occasionally coincide with particularly
high tides and otherwise pass unnoticed by the layman. The last spectacular
(and tragic) occasion was 50 years ago when vast sections of the Isle
of Grain were over run by the sea.

Descriptions taken from “The Rye Gazette” dated 9 February 1983.