The Little Shop, Winchelsea, East Sussex
One of the most notable features of Winchelsea is the number of well-built vaulted stone cellars (properly called undercrofts). The number is matched or exceeded only in Southampton, Norwich and Chester (but Chester’s cellars are built on a slope and are not truly subterranean, and many are not vaulted). Some 33 of Winchelsea’s cellars are still accessible and the existence of another 18 medieval vaulted cellars are known. From the amount of wine imported into New Winchelsea in 1300/01, it has been estimated that Winchelsea could have had as many as 70 cellars.
The cellars vary in size from 25 to 125 square metres, although the majority are in the range 30-50 square metres. The average cellar would hold over 120 hogsheads (6,300 gallons) of wine. All are well built and some are quite elaborate, with decorative features such as chamfered ribs and corbelling, probably in Caen stone. Each cellar is entered by a wide flight of stairs from the street, and some also have a rear entrance. Some cellars have windows, opening into stone-lined light wells leading up to street level.
The design of Winchelsea’s cellars and the quality of their construction suggests commercial rather than domestic use. The principal commodity stored in the cellars is thought to be wine from Gascony. The current theory is that the cellars, at least those with windows providing natural light and with decorative features, were used as part retail wine shop and part wholesale wine sales area. Wine bought in bulk was probably kept in warehouses down on the harbourside. The link between the cellars and the wine trade appears to be confirmed by the concentration of known cellars in the northeast corner of the town, close to the port. Only a few unvaulted cellars have been found around the Monday Market, reinforcing the view that the market square was for trading with Winchelsea’s hinterland.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt24.htm
In the first decades following its foundation, New Winchelsea flourished. The fishing and trading activities that made Old Winchelsea prosperous were successfully transferred to the new town. Its naval contribution to the Crown also continued to be head and shoulders above other English ports. For example, in the 1297 expedition to Gascony, Winchelsea provided a third of the force and many of the largest ships. One of its leading citizens and the first recorded mayor of Winchelsea, Gervase Alard junior, was appointed Admiral of the Western Fleet --- all the vessels in ship service from southern ports as far west as Cornwall --- in 1300 and is often described as England’s first admiral of the fleet (although, in fact, the title was first held by William Leybourn, previously ‘captain of the King’s sailors’ in 1295).
As in Old Winchelsea, a large measure of the prosperity of the new town was based on the import of wine from Gascony. In 1306/07 alone, 737,000 gallons of wine was shipped into Winchelsea. It also continued as the main port of embarkation for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella (2,433 pilgrims in 1434 alone) and featured in what Cooper claimed was the earliest English sea song:
For when they [pilgrims] take the see
At Sandwyche, or at Wynchelsee,
At Brystow, or where that it bee,
Theyr herts begin to fayle.
However, New Winchelsea’s most prosperous years were destined to be relatively short-lived.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt13.htm
The fortunes of Winchelsea started to decline in the latter half of the 14th century. By 1378, Winchelsea had been supplanted by Chichester as chief port of Sussex. By 1414, its southern and western suburbs had been abandoned.
Winchelsea’s decline has traditionally been attributed to attacks by the French and Castillians. Indeed, it is claimed that the first such raid took place in 1326 and destroyed a quarter of the town. Particularly brutal attack in 1360 by the French, and in 1380 by the French and Castilians (the latter became involved because of English support for one of the claimants of the Castillian throne and, after his death, the claim by John of Gaunt) wrought even more destruction. However, the town’s decline was probably down to a combination of factors. International conflict was certainly one factor. The Hundred Years War disrupted trade, diverted ships away from fishing and commerce into prolonged naval service and exposed Winchelsea’s fleet to the depredations of privateers.
However, the most serious problem for New Winchelsea was the silting up of the harbour due to the infilling of the upper reaches of the River Brede to create new farm land. This reduced the flow of the river and its scouring effect on the harbour. In addition, the eastward migration of shingle along the Channel --- the very force which had created and then destroyed Old Winchelsea --- had started to infill Rye Bay.
Economic forces were also at play in the decline of Winchelsea. The wine trade declined after 1337 and the start of the Hundred Years War. By the middle of the 14th century, the focus of English trade was shifting away from Flanders, Normandy and Gascony to Spain and the Mediterranean. There was also a decline in the North Sea herring fisheries, to which the Cinque Port towns had privileged access, and the opening of the competing deep sea Atlantic cod fisheries. These trends disadvantaged all the Cinque Port towns, which were unable to accommodate larger ocean-going vessels and were poorly situated compared to the western Channel ports and Bristol. The advent of the Black Death in 1348 (it hit Winchelsea in 1349) made the struggle to overcome these problems that much harder.
However, the decline of Winchelsea should not be exaggerated. There is evidence that Winchelsea recovered rapidly from French and Spanish attacks and was able to launch violent counter-attacks. By 1388, the commercial core of Winchelsea had been re-occupied. Civic expenditure increased. Among other things, the town went to the considerable expense of buying itself a civic clock. By 1404, the Pipewell Gate had been repaired. Substantial new houses continued to be built after 1350, although they were timber-framed rather than stone-built and tended to follow rural rather than urban designs. The most spectacular was a three-storeyed L-shaped timber-framed house built in 1500 on the corner of the High Street and Castle Street (now called Periteau House), which had two tiers of jetties overhanging the street.
Between 1419 and 1422, Winchelsea commissioned truly massive engineering works upstream on the River Brede to try to flush out its harbour. This involved cutting a major new channel to the sea which was 7.5km long enclosed by banks 150m apart. It allowed navigation as far as Brede.
Winchelsea’s continued sway as a naval power in the Channel is evidenced by its granting of the Winchelsea Certificate to the town of Poole in 1364, confirming the maritime jurisdiction of the mayor and burgesses of Poole over Poole Harbour. This was possibly some alliance between Winchelsea and Poole against neighbouring ports like Wareham, perhaps inspired by the value of Poole Harbour to Winchelsea ships. The event is still celebrated in Poole every year in the Beating of the Water Bounds of Poole Harbour.
In 1415, Winchelsea, Sandwich and London were named as ports for the assembly of foreign ships hired and seized by Henry V to transport his huge army to France.
As late as 1433, the Camber could still accommodate ships of up to 200 tons and remained the principal port of embarkation for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella. Foreign merchants were still active in the town in the middle of the century. In 1491, Winchelsea accounted for 65% of the customs revenues collected from southeastern ports by officials based at Chichester. In an agreement of 1394, Winchelsea undertook to contribute 10 of the 20 vessels that Hastings was obliged to provide for ship service, while Hastings and Rye were each to contribute five.
In 1415, Henry V commissioned a royal enquiry into the defences of Winchelsea which proposed a new section of wall and ditch inside the original defensive circuit to make it easier for the town to be defended following the abandonment of the western and southern suburbs. Only 21 of the original 39 quarters were to be within the new defensive circuit.
The proposed wall was to run south down the westernmost vertical street as far as Sixth Street, and then east along Sixth Street to the eastern cliff, cutting across the precinct of the Grey Friars. There was to be a new gate at the western end of Third Street (High Street) and another one in the southern wall to defend the road up from the abandoned New Gate. How much of the new defensive circuit was built is unclear. Peace with France following the Battle of Agincourt halted work.
The final episode in the defence of Winchelsea was the building of Camber Castle, also known as Winchelsea Castle, although strictly-speaking it was intended to defend the harbour of Rye. The Castle was situated at the end of a spit of shingle extending northeast from Winchelsea (called Kevill or Cobble Point). Incorporating an earlier tower, built by Sir Edward Guldeford between 1512 and 1514, it was constructed between 1538 and 1543, one of the chain of coastal forts built by Henry VIII against the French. Over the next century, the relentless eastward migration of shingle filled in large parts of Rye Bay and stranded the Castle. It was decommissioned in 1637.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt14.htm
The decline in Winchelsea’s fortunes appears to have accelerated at the start of the 16th century. By 1532, the town accounted for just 5% of the revenues collected from southeastern ports by customs officials based at Chichester. These had dwindled to almost nothing by 1550, by which time most of Winchelsea’s trade and fishing activity had migrated to Rye. In 1524, Winchelsea could provide only four small vessels and 15 men for ship service and in 1544, it managed just six boats. By 1561, there were no ships or boats based at Winchelsea. By 1587, there was one sailor left in Winchelsea, one William Bucston. However, the town contributed the considerable sum of £66 13s 4d towards the cost of the ship provided by Hastings, the Anne Bonaventure, to serve under Lord Seymour against the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1601, Sir Walter Raleigh commented that “there be many havens which have been famous, and now are gone to decay as Winchelsey: Rye is of little receipt”.
Winchelsea’s decline and decay naturally affected its institutions. In 1541, the parishes of St Thomas and St Giles were amalgamated. In 1548, the Corporation sold off the bells of the ‘great cross’ and the ‘great chalice’.
The fabric of Winchelsea also deteriorated. No new houses were built between about 1525 and the mid-18th century. When Queen Elizabeth I visited in 1573 (entering the town up the northern cliff along a steep path called Spring Steps), only 60 houses were inhabited and many derelict buildings were being demolished to provide stone for new buildings in neighbouring villages. The show put on by the Mayor and Corporation prompted her to refer (sarcastically) to the town as “Little London” but, in 1586, she did confirm the right of the Corporation to properties seized by the Crown at the Dissolution and transferred the Crown’s rents, subsequently called the Queen’s Dues, which amounted to about £22. The Corporation still tries to collect these rents today.
The same year as the Queen’s visit, St Thomas’s Church was described as being in a ‘ruinous’ condition and it may have been shortly afterwards that the church was reduced to its current truncated size and the central tower demolished.
The famous diarist John Evelyn confirmed the dilapidated state of Winchelsea during a visit in 1652, when he walked over from Rye. He observed only “a few despicable hovels and cottages” amid piles of rubbish and was astonished to discover that the place still boasted a mayor. He was however fascinated by the ruins of the medieval town which, he said, included “vast caves and vaults, walls and towns, ruins and monasteries and a sumptuous church”.
The Cinque Port Confederation as a whole followed Winchelsea on its downward spiral, and tried desperately to maintain its dignity by seeking to forge a “closer union characterised by an almost officious observance of ceremony” and to develop “an elaborate system of government, for the purpose of maintaining the obsolete privileges of an otherwise purposeless association” (Murray).
Curiously, despite its impoverished state, Winchelsea in the 16th and 17th century had a disproportionate number of gentleman and esquires resident in the town. This was because of the tax exemptions and other ancient privileges that continued to be derived from the town’s status as a member of the Cinque Port Confederation. It would seem that, despite the lamentable state of the town as a whole, the houses of these residents were well-maintained and often improved.
The Little Shop, Winchelsea, East Sussex
One of the most notable features of Winchelsea is the number of well-built vaulted stone cellars (properly called undercrofts). The number is matched or exceeded only in Southampton, Norwich and Chester (but Chester’s cellars are built on a slope and are not truly subterranean, and many are not vaulted). Some 33 of Winchelsea’s cellars are still accessible and the existence of another 18 medieval vaulted cellars are known. From the amount of wine imported into New Winchelsea in 1300/01, it has been estimated that Winchelsea could have had as many as 70 cellars.
The cellars vary in size from 25 to 125 square metres, although the majority are in the range 30-50 square metres. The average cellar would hold over 120 hogsheads (6,300 gallons) of wine. All are well built and some are quite elaborate, with decorative features such as chamfered ribs and corbelling, probably in Caen stone. Each cellar is entered by a wide flight of stairs from the street, and some also have a rear entrance. Some cellars have windows, opening into stone-lined light wells leading up to street level.
The design of Winchelsea’s cellars and the quality of their construction suggests commercial rather than domestic use. The principal commodity stored in the cellars is thought to be wine from Gascony. The current theory is that the cellars, at least those with windows providing natural light and with decorative features, were used as part retail wine shop and part wholesale wine sales area. Wine bought in bulk was probably kept in warehouses down on the harbourside. The link between the cellars and the wine trade appears to be confirmed by the concentration of known cellars in the northeast corner of the town, close to the port. Only a few unvaulted cellars have been found around the Monday Market, reinforcing the view that the market square was for trading with Winchelsea’s hinterland.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt24.htm
In the first decades following its foundation, New Winchelsea flourished. The fishing and trading activities that made Old Winchelsea prosperous were successfully transferred to the new town. Its naval contribution to the Crown also continued to be head and shoulders above other English ports. For example, in the 1297 expedition to Gascony, Winchelsea provided a third of the force and many of the largest ships. One of its leading citizens and the first recorded mayor of Winchelsea, Gervase Alard junior, was appointed Admiral of the Western Fleet --- all the vessels in ship service from southern ports as far west as Cornwall --- in 1300 and is often described as England’s first admiral of the fleet (although, in fact, the title was first held by William Leybourn, previously ‘captain of the King’s sailors’ in 1295).
As in Old Winchelsea, a large measure of the prosperity of the new town was based on the import of wine from Gascony. In 1306/07 alone, 737,000 gallons of wine was shipped into Winchelsea. It also continued as the main port of embarkation for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella (2,433 pilgrims in 1434 alone) and featured in what Cooper claimed was the earliest English sea song:
For when they [pilgrims] take the see
At Sandwyche, or at Wynchelsee,
At Brystow, or where that it bee,
Theyr herts begin to fayle.
However, New Winchelsea’s most prosperous years were destined to be relatively short-lived.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt13.htm
The fortunes of Winchelsea started to decline in the latter half of the 14th century. By 1378, Winchelsea had been supplanted by Chichester as chief port of Sussex. By 1414, its southern and western suburbs had been abandoned.
Winchelsea’s decline has traditionally been attributed to attacks by the French and Castillians. Indeed, it is claimed that the first such raid took place in 1326 and destroyed a quarter of the town. Particularly brutal attack in 1360 by the French, and in 1380 by the French and Castilians (the latter became involved because of English support for one of the claimants of the Castillian throne and, after his death, the claim by John of Gaunt) wrought even more destruction. However, the town’s decline was probably down to a combination of factors. International conflict was certainly one factor. The Hundred Years War disrupted trade, diverted ships away from fishing and commerce into prolonged naval service and exposed Winchelsea’s fleet to the depredations of privateers.
However, the most serious problem for New Winchelsea was the silting up of the harbour due to the infilling of the upper reaches of the River Brede to create new farm land. This reduced the flow of the river and its scouring effect on the harbour. In addition, the eastward migration of shingle along the Channel --- the very force which had created and then destroyed Old Winchelsea --- had started to infill Rye Bay.
Economic forces were also at play in the decline of Winchelsea. The wine trade declined after 1337 and the start of the Hundred Years War. By the middle of the 14th century, the focus of English trade was shifting away from Flanders, Normandy and Gascony to Spain and the Mediterranean. There was also a decline in the North Sea herring fisheries, to which the Cinque Port towns had privileged access, and the opening of the competing deep sea Atlantic cod fisheries. These trends disadvantaged all the Cinque Port towns, which were unable to accommodate larger ocean-going vessels and were poorly situated compared to the western Channel ports and Bristol. The advent of the Black Death in 1348 (it hit Winchelsea in 1349) made the struggle to overcome these problems that much harder.
However, the decline of Winchelsea should not be exaggerated. There is evidence that Winchelsea recovered rapidly from French and Spanish attacks and was able to launch violent counter-attacks. By 1388, the commercial core of Winchelsea had been re-occupied. Civic expenditure increased. Among other things, the town went to the considerable expense of buying itself a civic clock. By 1404, the Pipewell Gate had been repaired. Substantial new houses continued to be built after 1350, although they were timber-framed rather than stone-built and tended to follow rural rather than urban designs. The most spectacular was a three-storeyed L-shaped timber-framed house built in 1500 on the corner of the High Street and Castle Street (now called Periteau House), which had two tiers of jetties overhanging the street.
Between 1419 and 1422, Winchelsea commissioned truly massive engineering works upstream on the River Brede to try to flush out its harbour. This involved cutting a major new channel to the sea which was 7.5km long enclosed by banks 150m apart. It allowed navigation as far as Brede.
Winchelsea’s continued sway as a naval power in the Channel is evidenced by its granting of the Winchelsea Certificate to the town of Poole in 1364, confirming the maritime jurisdiction of the mayor and burgesses of Poole over Poole Harbour. This was possibly some alliance between Winchelsea and Poole against neighbouring ports like Wareham, perhaps inspired by the value of Poole Harbour to Winchelsea ships. The event is still celebrated in Poole every year in the Beating of the Water Bounds of Poole Harbour.
In 1415, Winchelsea, Sandwich and London were named as ports for the assembly of foreign ships hired and seized by Henry V to transport his huge army to France.
As late as 1433, the Camber could still accommodate ships of up to 200 tons and remained the principal port of embarkation for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostella. Foreign merchants were still active in the town in the middle of the century. In 1491, Winchelsea accounted for 65% of the customs revenues collected from southeastern ports by officials based at Chichester. In an agreement of 1394, Winchelsea undertook to contribute 10 of the 20 vessels that Hastings was obliged to provide for ship service, while Hastings and Rye were each to contribute five.
In 1415, Henry V commissioned a royal enquiry into the defences of Winchelsea which proposed a new section of wall and ditch inside the original defensive circuit to make it easier for the town to be defended following the abandonment of the western and southern suburbs. Only 21 of the original 39 quarters were to be within the new defensive circuit.
The proposed wall was to run south down the westernmost vertical street as far as Sixth Street, and then east along Sixth Street to the eastern cliff, cutting across the precinct of the Grey Friars. There was to be a new gate at the western end of Third Street (High Street) and another one in the southern wall to defend the road up from the abandoned New Gate. How much of the new defensive circuit was built is unclear. Peace with France following the Battle of Agincourt halted work.
The final episode in the defence of Winchelsea was the building of Camber Castle, also known as Winchelsea Castle, although strictly-speaking it was intended to defend the harbour of Rye. The Castle was situated at the end of a spit of shingle extending northeast from Winchelsea (called Kevill or Cobble Point). Incorporating an earlier tower, built by Sir Edward Guldeford between 1512 and 1514, it was constructed between 1538 and 1543, one of the chain of coastal forts built by Henry VIII against the French. Over the next century, the relentless eastward migration of shingle filled in large parts of Rye Bay and stranded the Castle. It was decommissioned in 1637.
www.winchelsea.net/visiting/winchelsea_history_pt14.htm
The decline in Winchelsea’s fortunes appears to have accelerated at the start of the 16th century. By 1532, the town accounted for just 5% of the revenues collected from southeastern ports by customs officials based at Chichester. These had dwindled to almost nothing by 1550, by which time most of Winchelsea’s trade and fishing activity had migrated to Rye. In 1524, Winchelsea could provide only four small vessels and 15 men for ship service and in 1544, it managed just six boats. By 1561, there were no ships or boats based at Winchelsea. By 1587, there was one sailor left in Winchelsea, one William Bucston. However, the town contributed the considerable sum of £66 13s 4d towards the cost of the ship provided by Hastings, the Anne Bonaventure, to serve under Lord Seymour against the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1601, Sir Walter Raleigh commented that “there be many havens which have been famous, and now are gone to decay as Winchelsey: Rye is of little receipt”.
Winchelsea’s decline and decay naturally affected its institutions. In 1541, the parishes of St Thomas and St Giles were amalgamated. In 1548, the Corporation sold off the bells of the ‘great cross’ and the ‘great chalice’.
The fabric of Winchelsea also deteriorated. No new houses were built between about 1525 and the mid-18th century. When Queen Elizabeth I visited in 1573 (entering the town up the northern cliff along a steep path called Spring Steps), only 60 houses were inhabited and many derelict buildings were being demolished to provide stone for new buildings in neighbouring villages. The show put on by the Mayor and Corporation prompted her to refer (sarcastically) to the town as “Little London” but, in 1586, she did confirm the right of the Corporation to properties seized by the Crown at the Dissolution and transferred the Crown’s rents, subsequently called the Queen’s Dues, which amounted to about £22. The Corporation still tries to collect these rents today.
The same year as the Queen’s visit, St Thomas’s Church was described as being in a ‘ruinous’ condition and it may have been shortly afterwards that the church was reduced to its current truncated size and the central tower demolished.
The famous diarist John Evelyn confirmed the dilapidated state of Winchelsea during a visit in 1652, when he walked over from Rye. He observed only “a few despicable hovels and cottages” amid piles of rubbish and was astonished to discover that the place still boasted a mayor. He was however fascinated by the ruins of the medieval town which, he said, included “vast caves and vaults, walls and towns, ruins and monasteries and a sumptuous church”.
The Cinque Port Confederation as a whole followed Winchelsea on its downward spiral, and tried desperately to maintain its dignity by seeking to forge a “closer union characterised by an almost officious observance of ceremony” and to develop “an elaborate system of government, for the purpose of maintaining the obsolete privileges of an otherwise purposeless association” (Murray).
Curiously, despite its impoverished state, Winchelsea in the 16th and 17th century had a disproportionate number of gentleman and esquires resident in the town. This was because of the tax exemptions and other ancient privileges that continued to be derived from the town’s status as a member of the Cinque Port Confederation. It would seem that, despite the lamentable state of the town as a whole, the houses of these residents were well-maintained and often improved.