Back to photostream

Lamb House, Rye, East Sussex, UK

Lamb House is a Grade II listed 18th-century house situated in Rye, East Sussex, England, and in the ownership of the National Trust.

 

The house is run as a writer's house museum. It was the home of Henry James from 1897 to 1914, and later of E.F. Benson.

 

Lamb House was built in 1722 by James Lamb, a wealthy wine merchant and local politician. In the winter of 1726 King George I took refuge at the house after his ship was washed ashore at nearby Camber Sands. James Lamb gave up his bedroom for the King, while Mrs Lamb gave birth to a baby boy during the night. The child was named George and the king consented to be the boy's godfather.

 

A detached Garden Room, with a large bay window overlooking the street, was built at right angles to the house in 1743, and originally served as a banqueting room. Both Henry James and E. F. Benson later used the Garden Room as a base for their writing during the summer months. The Garden Room was destroyed by a German bomb in 1940.

 

Benson wrote lovingly of both the garden and house, which he renamed "Mallards", in his popular Mapp and Lucia novels.[6] Lamb House is the subject of Joan Aiken's supernatural book The Haunting of Lamb House (1993), comprising three novellas about residents of the house at different times, including James and Benson (both of whom also wrote ghost stories).

 

Other tenants have included the novelist Rumer Godden, the author and academic A. C. Benson, the author and politician H. Montgomery Hyde, the artist and publisher Sir Brian Batsford, politician William Mabane, 1st Baron Mabane, the literary agent Graham Watson, the actor Dominic Rowan and his family, and the writers John Senior and Sarah Philo.

 

Rye is a small town and civil parish in the Rother district, in East Sussex, England, two miles from the sea at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede. In medieval times, as an important member of the Cinque Ports confederation, it was at the head of an embayment of the English Channel, and almost entirely surrounded by the sea.

 

At the 2011 census, Rye had a population of 4,773. Its historical association with the sea has included providing ships for the service of the Crown in time of war, and being involved in smuggling. The notorious Hawkhurst Gang used its ancient inns The Mermaid Inn and The Olde Bell Inn, which are said to be connected to each other by a secret passageway.

 

Those historic roots and its charm make it a tourist destination, with hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, tea rooms, and restaurants. It has a small fishing fleet, and Rye Harbour has facilities for yachts and other vessels.

 

-Wikipedia

4,074 views
20 faves
2 comments
Uploaded on December 4, 2019
Taken on August 16, 2019