Rye Figure of 8 walk

Three rivers, two castles, and a coastal nature reserve in two linked circular walks.

History

This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.

Date Option Post # Weather
Sat, 24-Feb-24 Three rivers, two castles, one very pretty town and a coastal nature reserve: Rye Figure Of Eight 6 mostly wet
Sun, 23-Aug-20 a Three rivers, two castles, one very pretty town and a coastal nature reserve: Rye Figure Of Eight [New Walk] 10 mostly sunny
Length: 20.9 km (13.0 mi) [Longer and Shorter Walks possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: 110m
Net Walking Time: ca. 4 ½ hours
Toughness: 2 out of 10
Take the 09.37 Dover Priory train from St. Pancras (Stratford I’nal 09.44), change at Ashford (10.14/10.24), arriving Rye 10.46.
Return trains : xx.48 (from 66 mins journey time).
Buy a Rye (Sussex) return, with High Speed Surcharge.
Perched on its sandstone outcrop, the medieval hilltop town of Rye was an important member of the Cinque Ports confederation. However, great storms in the 13thC changed the coastline in this part of the south-east and the town now lies 3 km from the sea, at the confluence of three rivers. A small fishing fleet at Rye Harbour maintains the town's tenuous link with the sea, and the many places with ‘salt’ in their name testify that it was once a centre for preserving the catch.
The walk consists of two loops around the town in a Figure-of-8, with stretches alongside all three rivers. The northern loop is across the undulating Wealden countryside between the Tillingham and Rother rivers, a varied landscape of sheep pasture, arable farmland and orchards, ending with a riverside stretch on the edge of Walland Marsh. The southern loop has a completely different character, taking in part of the large area of reclaimed land between the Brede and Rother rivers designated as Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, “a mosaic of shingle, saltmarsh, saline lagoons, coastal grazing marsh, freshwater gravel pits and reedbeds”. In between, the town's historic centre (known as the Citadel) has so many attractive buildings that there is an extra loop around its cobbled streets to appreciate them.
The walk also reveals the threats of invasion over many centuries, a consequence of Rye's vulnerable location on the English Channel. In the town itself Ypres Tower (jocularly pronounced Wipers) and the Landgate are remnants of its fortification against French raids in the Hundred Years War. The same enemy also led to the construction of forts such as Camber Castle in the Tudor period and many Martello Towers in the Napoleonic era. Concrete blockhouses and pillboxes scattered around Rye Harbour are reminders of a different enemy in the last century.
If you are not in a hurry, Rye has several visitor attractions which are worth considering. See the webpage for details.
Walk Options:
A Long Walk extends the morning section by taking in more of the undulating countryside north of the town, going out as far as the village of Iden before looping back (in another Figure-of-8) via Playden.
If you want to spend more time exploring Rye, the Short Walk cuts out most of the afternoon section, only venturing as far as Camber Castle and Castle Water.
The loops making up these options could be switched around or even done separately as half-day walks.
The Harbour Walk is essentially the full afternoon section with an optional short loop over Rye Hill at the end for variety. This Extension duplicates part of the Long Walk but it also makes a worthwhile addition to the Short Walk.
Lunch: Plenty of options in Rye, plus one pub earlier on in Iden. See the webpage or the pdf for details.
Tea: Plenty of options in Rye, see the webpage or the pdf for details.
For walk directions, maps, height profiles, photos and gpx/kml files click here . T=swc.365
  • Sat, 24-Feb-24

    6 at the station, 2 of whom decided to go south in case it started raining. An over-optimistic 4 set off on the northern loop. The rain started at the top of the hill, light at first, then hail, then heavier rain. So mostly wet .

    All was going swimmingly (in both senses of the word) until we crossed the bridge over the Rother. Guess what, readers, the path along the Rother was closed. For flood defence work. Frowny face.

    It will be closed till October. Frowny frowny face.

    Luckily one of our number was adept with his gizmo and maps and stuff and identified paths through the marsh that would lead us home. I say ‘luckily’, that’s maybe not the best word. Whoever thought marshes would be wet? We had to cross many an impromptu river, and make many a detour past an impromptu lagoon before we reached Rye. Mr Tiger’s socks were wet. Very wet.

    Once there, we ventured into the Ship Inn where three ordered slap up meals. They deemed the food good. After a pint of beer (also good), Mr Tiger made his excuses and left, needing to rush home and shake any surviving frogs out of his boots.

    Safe to say people enjoyed the walk despite the arduous conditions.

Length: 25.8 km (16.0 mi) [Shorter Walks possible, see below]
Ascent/Descent: negligible
Net Walking Time: ca. 5 ½ hours, Toughness: 5 out of 10
Take the 09.37 Dover Priory train from St. Pancras (Stratford I’nal 09.44), change at Ashford (10.14/10.25), arriving Rye 10.46.
Return trains : xx.48 (69 mins journey time). Buy a Rye (Sussex) return, with High Speed Surcharge.
New walk by someone who beat me to writing up a walk involving Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, let's be checking it out, as it sounds promising...
Perched on its sandstone outcrop, the medieval hilltop town of Rye was an important member of the Cinque Ports confederation. However, great storms in the 13thC changed the coastline in this part of the south-east and the town now lies 3 km from the sea, at the confluence of three rivers. A small fishing fleet at Rye Harbour maintains the town's tenuous link with the sea, and the many places with ‘salt’ in their name testify that it was once a centre for preserving the catch.
The walk consists of two loops around the town in a Figure-of-8, with stretches alongside all three rivers. The northern loop is across the undulating Wealden countryside between the Tillingham and Rother rivers, a varied landscape of sheep pasture, arable farmland and orchards, ending with a riverside stretch on the edge of Walland Marsh. The southern loop has a completely different character, taking in part of the large area of reclaimed land between the Brede and Rother rivers designated as Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, “a mosaic of shingle, saltmarsh, saline lagoons, coastal grazing marsh, freshwater gravel pits and reedbeds”. In between, the town's historic centre (known as the Citadel) has so many attractive buildings that there is an extra loop around its cobbled streets to appreciate them.
The walk also reveals the threats of invasion over many centuries, a consequence of Rye's vulnerable location on the English Channel. In the town itself Ypres Tower (pronounced Wipers) and the Landgate are remnants of its fortification against French raids in the Hundred Years War. The same enemy also led to the construction of forts such as Camber Castle in the Tudor period and many Martello Towers in the Napoleonic era. Concrete blockhouses and pillboxes scattered around Rye Harbour are reminders of a different enemy in the last century.
Walk Options:
Both the morning and the afternoon loop of this long version of the walk can be shortened. For details please consult the webpage linked below, or the walk directions pdf .

Lunch: Plenty of options in Rye, plus one pub earlier on in Iden. See the webpage or the pdf for details.
Tea: Plenty of options in Rye, see the pdf for details.
For walk directions, maps, height profiles and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.365.a
  • Sun, 23-Aug-20

    Pleasingly, Southern have indeed taken to running longer trains on the Marshlink line, so the connecting train was busy but had seats for all. We started in sunshine and found the initial route north out of Rye quite interesting, with some views and interesting buildings and churches. The next section (River Rother to Iden) was a touch less interesting I felt as it basically is just flat pastures without views and the odd bit of woodland. At Iden we stopped for refreshments at The Bell.

    The return route to Rye is more undulating and therefore more rewarding. All in: a good start to the walk.

    We'd been 7 off the train, with 1 other coming in from Brighton who had his train running out of fuel!, so was stuck in Hastings for a while and was always behind the group all day. At the lunch stop in Rye, the garden of the Ypres Castle pub, we were met by two others though: one was unable to make the posted train, so had planned to be an hour behind but then saw that train cancelled (the one that run out of fuel en route to Ashford?), so now being 2 hours behind, abandoned the idea of doing the morning loop altogether; and [you probably expect this] the walk author was also waiting to join us for the afternoon loop, i.e. 10.

    The sky was now more dominated by grey clouds and at one point it even threatened to rain, but it never did, not where we were anyway (you could see sheets of rain not far away though at various times). That made for big skies and beautiful cloudscapes over the marshes that came next after an extensive meandering loop through Rye itself: the enormous Camber Castle, lakes, bird hides, shingle deserts, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, the Sea. Very enjoyable this although the long last stretch back along the coast and river Rother to Rye Harbour is entirely along tarmac. 2 took the shortcut in the marshes (i.e. the normal walk route), while the Walk Author and the picknickers had left first from the Ypres Castle pub anyway and we only met them again just before the William the Conqueror in Rye Harbour, where we then had a well deserved break at an outside table, now again with blue skies. Still 40 minutes to walk from there back to the station, catching the 18.48 (apart from 1 walker who is overnighting in Rye). mostly sunny

    All in: very little overlap with the other walks in/around Rye, and a fine walk at it (and with loads of blackberries).