A collection of digitised and typeset historical
books, articles and archival material relating to Rye and
the surrounding Sussex coast. These editions have been
reconstructed from historical source material for ordinary
reading and reference. editor@ryelocalhistory.org
The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Town and Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex
William Holloway
·
1847
Holloway's History was the first proper exploration of the story of Rye and is the basis for all subsequent scholarship. This retypeset edition is drawn from one of four scans to be found online and is likely to have minor errors, especially in the tables, where printed type was small and OCR was poor.
Holloway divided the work into three volumes and presented here:
Volume I: Rye’s origins, charters and political history to the Reform Acts of the 1830s. Read PDF
Volume II: Rye’s local history, town revenues, charities and public institutions. Read PDF
Volume III: Rye’s parish and ecclesiastical history, poor relief, roads, notable people and antiquities. Read PDF
A Guide and History of Rye
Henry Pocock Clark
·
1861
Clark was the most colourful of the Rye historians. His Guide is a mix of personal history,
town history and verse. Still a very enterrtaining read, if some of the humour is impenetrably
Victorian.
Read PDF
Rambles through Rye
William Holloway
·
1866
These essays were originally serialised in the South-Eastern Advertiser from November 1862 through February 1863, then published together in book form later that year. Another edition was published in 1866, but no substantial changes were made to the text.
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Ancient Rye
J.L. Deacon
·
1911
Deacon is best known for his popular Guides of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ancient Rye is likely distilled from the editorial portions of those books.
Read PDF
A Concise Historical & Topographical Sketch of Hastings, Winchelsea, & Rye
Frederick Wilton Litchfield Stockdale
·
1817
This is an exerpt of a very early local guidebook. The Hastings and Winchelsea sections have been removed in this edition, leaving a brief but interesting view of Rye. The full document is available
in many places.
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Deacon's Court Guide
C. W. Deacon & Co
·
1881
This series of gazetteers and county blue books
was a commercial publication of the firm C. W. Deacon & Co of London. Not to be confused with J. L. Deacon, Mayor of Rye, who printed Deacon's Guides and Ancient Rye. Excerpts
of city guides are not substantial sources of information, but they do provide a useful snapshot of important events and meaningful dates.
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“Mad Jack” the Honest Sussex Squire
Arthur Beckett
·
1925
An article from the Sussex County Magazine by the editor, Arthur Beckett. John "Mad Jack" Fuller (1757–1834) was one of Sussex's most colourful Georgian landowners.
Squire of Brightling, Tory MP, patron of the arts and sciences, and benefactor of
Michael Faraday, he is remembered today chiefly for the extraordinary follies he built
across his estate.
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A Dissertation On Sussex Proverbs And Curious Sayings
Arthur Beckett
·
1927
An article from the Sussex County Magazine by the editor, Arthur Beckett. It's a short article that collects sayings in the Sussex dialect. I have added footnotes using the magic of Google to look up some of the phrases that puzzled Beckett.
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The Amusing H.P. Clark of Rye
Arthur Beckett
·
1932
An article from the Sussex County Magazine by the editor, Arthur Beckett. Largely extracts from the autobiographical section of Clark's Guide, though there are some interesting observations.
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