How I spent the perfect 24 hours in Rye, Sussex – from fancy bacon rolls and a must-see micropub to walks by the beach
SATURDAY
8am The train ride to Rye from London St Pancras International is just over an hour, arriving in the ancient Sussex town in time for breakfast. So it’s straight to high street bakery Whitehouse for ‘fancy bacon rolls’ (£11.50). Fancy they are, with chilli fried eggs and onion.
10am We’re staying at Landgate House, a 700-year-old Grade II listed townhouse (from £500 a night; sleeps nine, find out more at landgatehouse.com). We spend ten minutes yelling out things we love: the French farm table, the freestanding bathtubs and the gold-framed paintings.
12.30pm We pay a small fee (£4 for adults, free for kids) to scramble up the clock tower at St Mary’s Parish Church, gazing out at marshland and rows of medieval, Tudor and Georgian houses (above). On a sunny day Rye hits the eye as prettily as any Tuscan hill town.
2.30pm Everything in town is walkable, which is great as we’re a big group with babies. We amble among the antiques markets, grab a coffee at lifestyle shop Rae (£3.60), browse the interiors at Soap and Salvation (above) and buy fish and chips at Marino’s (£9.90).
4pm Cobbled Mermaid Street is the most photographed place in Rye – and particularly beautiful at sunset. Do stop at The Mermaid Inn, where Elizabeth I is said to have scribbled her signature on a wall after a few ales. The barman is also well stocked with ghost stories.
7pm The Waterworks has been a pump house and a soup kitchen and is now a micropub. It is tiny and shabby with antique furniture, all of which is for sale. I have a cider served from a big glass jar (£5) and enjoy it so much that I forget I was sent out to buy nappies.
SUNDAY
9am We walk to picturesque Winchelsea, a village a few miles from Rye, through windblown wetlands and along the Royal Military canal. Spike Milligan is buried here at St Thomas’s Church and his epitaph reads: ‘I told you I was ill.’
12pm From Winchelsea we take the coastal path to Hastings, stopping at The Cove in Fairlight for plates of croquette-like bitterballen. From there it’s a 20-minute taxi ride to Tillingham Winery (above), where we enjoy a five-course tasting menu (£60) in the converted barn.
4pm We finish our weekend on Camber Sands beach, a ten-minute drive from Rye, taking in the sea air with an ice cream. There’s even time to pick up a couple of bottles from Beaucatcher Wines back in Rye before getting the train home. We are fun parents.
