Exploring Rye with Brian Hargreaves is a fascinating new guide to Rye. By Joyce Rye The beautifully produced book is packed with dozens of black and white drawings of buildings and streets each one correctly drawn along with short captions giving their history. There is a map which enables the reader to locate the street that they are looking at easily while walking round the town.
Brian’s eye for detail stems from when he was a student at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and took architecture as one of his subjects. He has picked out points which the reader looking at a photograph would have missed.
It seems that all the main buildings in Rye have been illustrated and Brian tells me that the best sales are to local people who are now going to look at Rye a little closer. Also because it is a slim volume of 44 pages people are sending it to relatives and friends all over the world, a lot will be getting them as Christmas presents.
Brian’s first job was guilding and church restoration working in many of the London churches and the Houses of Parliament finally guilding the ball and cross on top of St. Paul’s Cathedral before spending 35 years at the Natural History Museum illustrating butterflies and moths in a wide range of books.
He is married to Joyce who is an artist and also an author. She has written several books on mythology and also on crafts. They are now involved in the Rye Castle Museum producing their journal.
I hope that this will give you an insight into the publication and perhaps persuade you to have a look at it. Books are available at the Martello Bookshop, Adams, The Heritage Centre and The Tourist Information Centre priced £5.50.
Rye’s Own September 2010
(Hard Copy Back Numbers Still Available)
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