The Mermaid Inn
Encyclopedia
The Mermaid Inn is a Grade II* listed historical inn located on Mermaid Street in the ancient town of Rye, East Sussex
Rye, East Sussex
Rye is a small town in East Sussex, England, which stands approximately two miles from the open sea and is at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede...

, southeastern England. One of the best-known inns in southeast England, it was established in the 12th century and has a long, turbulent history. The current building dates from 1420 and has 16th-century additions in the Tudor style, but cellars built in 1156 survive. The inn has a strong connection with the notorious Hawkhurst Gang
Hawkhurst Gang
The Hawkhurst Gang was a notorious criminal organisation involved in smuggling throughout southeast England from 1735 until 1749. One of the more infamous gangs of the early 18th century, they extended their influence from Dorset, where they successfully raided the customs house at Poole, to the...

 of smugglers, who used it in the 1730s and 1740s as one of their strongholds: Rye was a thriving port during this period. Some of the smugglers, their mistresses and other characters are reported to haunt the inn.

The AA Rosette-winning restaurant serves British and French cuisine and features medieval artwork in the interior by the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...

. It has been owned by Judith Blincow since 1993.

Geography

The Mermaid Inn is located on Mermaid Street, which was once the town's main road. Mermaid street of present day, must have been the Middle street of 1670. Middle Street used to include the present Mermaid and Middle streets; in fact, the original Middle street was the present Mermaid street, as the Mermaid Inn is described as abutting on the south towards that street. The inn is situated on the north side of Mermaid street, and abutted to Middle Street towards the south. Other close-by establishments, which were also used by the Hawkhurst Gang, included the London Trader Inn, the Flushing Inn, and the Olde Bell Inn.

History

Early years
The cellars of the Mermaid Inn date from 1156, believed to be the year that the original inn was built, or shortly afterwards: Nikolaus Pevsner
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...

 and English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 identified them as 13th-century. In its original form, the building was constructed of wattle and daub
Wattle and daub
Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw...

, lath
Lath
A lath is a thin, narrow strip of some straight-grained wood or other material, including metal or gypsum. A lattice, or lattice-work, is a criss-crossed or interlaced arrangement of laths, or the pattern made by such an arrangement...

 and plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...

. It was a notable alehouse during medieval times, brewing its own ale and charging a penny a night for lodging. The inn became popular with sailors who came to the port of Rye, and the port also provided ships for the Cinque Ports Fleet
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. It lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest...

.

In the 1420s, the inn was rebuilt but retained its cellars. It underwent further renovation in the 16th century, much of which remains today. Catholic priests who had fled from Continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

 escaping from the Reformation during 1530 stayed in the inn, which is testified by (Jesus Homnium Salvator
Holy Name of Jesus
In Christianity, the Holy Name of Jesus refers to the theological and devotional use of the name of Jesus. The reverence and affection with which Christians have regarded the Holy Name of Jesus goes back to the earliest days of Christianity....

) inscribed in the oak-panelled "Syn’s Lounge". Between 1550 and 1570, the Town Corporation organised many functions such as the "Sessions Dinner", the "Gentlemens Freeman’s Dinner", "Mayoring Day" and the "Herring Feast". Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

 was also a guest at the inn around this time.

The inn had a strong connection with the notorious Hawkhurst Gang
Hawkhurst Gang
The Hawkhurst Gang was a notorious criminal organisation involved in smuggling throughout southeast England from 1735 until 1749. One of the more infamous gangs of the early 18th century, they extended their influence from Dorset, where they successfully raided the customs house at Poole, to the...

 which used the premises during the 1730s and 1740s. This large group of smugglers controlled territory from Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 to Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 from their base at the Oak and Ivy Inn in Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst
Hawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. The parish lies to the south-east of Tunbridge Wells. Hawkhurst itself is virtually two villages...

, but they used the Mermaid Inn as a secondary location. There are a myriad of secret tunnels, including one which ran from the cellars to the Old Bell Inn
The Old Bell Inn, Rye
The Old Bell Inn, also known as Ye Olde Bell Inn, is a Grade II listed historical inn in Rye, East Sussex. It was built in 1390. It has a turbulent history and was once used for smuggling, connected by a secret tunnel to the nearby The Mermaid Inn to the south...

 (built 1390) in The Mint, a street which runs parallel to the north of Mermaid Street. A revolving cupboard at the end of the tunnel in the Olde Bell would then be used by the gang for a quick getaway. A resident of Rye remembered the smugglers as; "when the Hawkhurst Gang were at the height of their pride and insolence having seen them (after successfully running a cargo of goods on the seashore), seated at the windows of this house (the Mermaid) carousing and smoking their pipes, with their loaded pistols lying on the table before them; no magistrate daring to interfere with them".

By 1770, the building ceased functioning as an inn. By 1847, it was in use as a house and was owned by Charles Poile; the yard at the back, through which there was a footway leading to High Street, was called the Mermaid Yard.

Later years
The inn functioned as a club in 1913, after it came under the ownership of May Aldington, mother of the novelist Richard Aldington
Richard Aldington
Richard Aldington , born Edward Godfree Aldington, was an English writer and poet.Aldington was best known for his World War I poetry, the 1929 novel, Death of a Hero, and the controversy arising from his 1955 Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry...

. It was then a popular locale for many artists like Dame Ellen Terry, Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...

 (Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

’s "Bosie"), A.C. and E.F. Benson and Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

. In 1945, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the inn functioned as a garrison for Canadian officers. It was later purchased by Mr L. Wilson, a Canadian, who had been garrisoned there. The Mermaid Inn had the honour of hosting a luncheon to Her Majesty the Queen Mother when she was named as the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports during her visit to Rye in 1982.

Under the name Mermaid House and The Mermaid Hotel, the Mermaid Inn was listed at Grade II* by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 on 12 October 1951. This defines it as a "particularly important" building of "more than special interest". As of February 2001, it was one of 75 Grade II* listed buildings, and 2,106 listed buildings of all grades, in Rother
Rother
Rother is a local government district in East Sussex, England. The district is named after the River Rother which flows within its boundaries.-History:...

—the local government district
Non-metropolitan district
Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially shire districts, are a type of local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan counties in a so-called "two-tier" arrangement...

 in which Rye is located. The Mermaid Inn is presently owned by Judith Blincow and Robert Pinwill, who bought it in 1993.

Architecture and fittings

The black and white timber-framed
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 and tiled building, with dark oak and carved stone chimney pieces, was constructed in the mid-15th century; the author of Old Sussex Inns identifies 1426 as the date. Some of the timber was taken from ships that had been broken up. The south-facing elevation, the oldest section apart from the cellars, has a five-window range to the upper storey and attic space above. The upper storey is jettied
Jettying
Jettying is a building technique used in medieval timber frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the available space in the building without obstructing the street...

, and the section to the west extends over the entrance to the inner courtyard and former stable area. This overhang is supported on wooden columns with brackets
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...

 and cross-beams. The north-facing section, beyond courtyard, is also timber-framed but with brick facing and infilling. It rises to two storeys with two windows on each and a dormer
Dormer
A dormer is a structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.Often...

 above. This, and the east and west ranges, are 16th- and 18th-century. The tiled roof has one gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

 end.

The chimney is made of Caen stone
Caen stone
Caen stone or Pierre de Caen, is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in northwestern France near the city of Caen.The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ago...

 and embellished with decorations. The secret passages that existed in the inn have now been converted into fireplaces. The Giant's Fireplace Bar features an inglenook
Inglenook
An inglenook , or chimney corner, is a small recess that adjoins a fireplace.Inglenook may also refer to:*Inglenook, California, community in Mendocino County...

 fireplace which is supported by a beam that traverses the room. Other low panelled rooms, contain large Tudor
Tudor architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...

 fireplaces and dog grates (a freestanding basket grate intended to hold wood for the fireplace). Monogram, names and dates are carved on the stone fireplaces, including "1643", "1646", and "Loffelholtz". Some of the chairs are elaborately carved and were made from ships' timbers.

There are 31 rooms, each of different design, spread over several floors. Eight bedrooms have 4-poster beds. The bathrooms are fitted with modern amenities. The ceiling has thick and dark teak wood beams while the windows are made of lead frames. Diamond-paned windows are situated at the back. The floors creak.

Haunting

The Mermaid Inn is well known for its hauntings and has been subject to an investigation by Most Haunted
Most Haunted
Most Haunted is a British paranormal documentary reality television series. The series was first shown on 25 May 2002 and ended on 21 July 2010. It was broadcast on Living and presented by Yvette Fielding. The programme was based on investigating purported paranormal activity...

. The events in one room have been described as "one of the most well-organised ghostly scenarios anywhere".
  • Room 1 (The James) is said to be haunted by a lady in white or grey who sits in the chair by the fireplace. Guests have reported waking up in the morning and finding their clothes on the chair wet, despite no windows or pipework being near the chair.
  • Room 5 (The Nutcracker Suite) is said to be haunted by the ghost of a white lady who walks across the room and stops at the foot of the bed and then resumes.
  • Room 10 (The Fleur de Lys) is said to be haunted by the ghost of a man who has terrified guests by walking through the bathroom wall into the main room.
  • Room 16 (The Elizabethan) was said to be the scene of a duel involving two men "of unknown date and origin" (although they have also been described as wearing "16th-century clothing"). After fighting through some of the nearby rooms, one of the men was killed, dragged into the adjacent room and thrown through a trapdoor into the dungeon below. Many unexplained light anomalies have been recorded in the middle of the night. On one occasion an employee was tending to the fireplace when all of the bottles on the bottle shelf at the other end of the room fell off; the experience caused him to resign. The ghost of a maid is said to be present in the inn; she was the girlfriend of one of the smugglers of the Hawkhurst Gang and was killed by his fellow gang members as they feared she knew too much and would expose them.
  • Room 17 (The Kingsmill Room) is named after Thomas Kingsmill
    Thomas Kingsmill
    Thomas Kingsmill was an English academic, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford from 1570.-Life:He was the seventh son of Sir John Kingsmill of Fribock, Hampshire. Entering Magdalen College, Oxford as a demy, he graduated B.A. in 1559, M.A. in 1564, and supplicated for the B.D. degree in 1572...

    , a Hawkhurst smuggler who inhabited the inn. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who was said to be the wife of the Hawkhurst gang founder George Gray. She was said to haunt a rocking chair in the room; guests would wake up in the middle of the night and see the chair rocking on its own, and found the room icy cold. The chair was eventually removed from the premises because it caused so many disturbances with guests.
  • Room 19 (The Hawkhurst Suite) is said to be haunted by a gentleman in old-fashioned clothes. One American guest reported seeing him sitting at the end of her bed: in terror, she spent the night in the adjacent room with a mattress pulled around her head.


Judith Blincow, who owns the inn and has worked there since 1980, states, "Although I have not personally seen ghosts, I certainly have met some very convinced and frightened guests."

External links

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