At Winchelsea the church is the centre of everything: you cannot move a hundred yards without coming into sight of it. But you might walk round and about Rye all day and not notice it. Shut away at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life, in its isolation it somewhat resembles a cathedral. But there the resemblance stops: there is no cathedral atmosphere. True, there is a quiet in the square, but it is not the cold ghostly hush of the close or the cloister. Instead, all is sunlight and warmth. The walls are grey, the buttresses are grey, the tombs are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-grown roofs, in full harmony with the surrounding mosaic of colour. ====================================================================== [Illustration: RYE CHURCH] Rye church stands at the top of the hill, behind and away from all the everyday business of life. Its walls are grey, but it is a warm familiar colour, at one with the red of the lichen-covered roofs. (_See page 54_) ====================================================================== Just below the churchyard, in the south-east corner, the Ypres (or, as it is called locally, the Wipers) Tower still stands, a squat, heavy-looking building, not altogether beautiful; and at the other end of the town the Landgate, the sole survivor of the town's five portals. Between these two, dotted about here and there in the winding, cobble-stoned streets, are buildings of great beauty, some unfortunately modernized on the outside. One is the old rubble-stone building in Watchbell Street, commonly known as the Carmelite Friary. It is an interesting specimen of a small mediaeval hall with chambers below, but its association with the order is now pretty generally recognized as a mistake. Steep little Mermaid Street--perhaps the most beautiful of all the quaint turnings--has two notable buildings, the Old Hospital and the Mermaid Inn. The Hospital is a fine timbered structure with huge gables. The Inn is a Tudor building, surrounding a tiny court. Little is to be seen from the road; but inside it is a charming old-world place, with latticed windows and massive oak beams, fine panelling and great fireplaces. In the stately red house at the head of the street Mr. Henry James for many years found inspiration for his wonderful studies of modern temperaments,--about as remote as possible from the atmosphere of the quaint little grass-grown street. Perhaps the most interesting of all the buildings is the Old Flushing Inn. It possesses some fine oakwork, but the greatest attraction is the quaint mural painting in imitation of tapestry, covering the whole of one wall, and dating from 1574. In olden days the place was a popular rendezvous among gentlemen of the "free trade", for in the rear it possessed a courtyard which extended right to the edge of the cliff--at that point practically vertical and about sixty feet