HOME	The New Town.

The thirteenth century was a period of coastal erosion and the shingle spit on which the town stood was steadily eaten away, Old Winchelsea's first petition to the King for help was made in 1236 but nothing was done until, a commission was sent down in 1282 to examine the situation. The Commissioners, who included the King's Treasurer and the Mayor of London, reported that Winchelsea was indeed in a parlous state, a large part being already destroyed and the rest in imminent danger. They agreed that the well being of the town was of great value to the realm and it should be rebuilt on a safer site.

King Edward 1 acted. A new site for the town was selected, plans were drawn up and the work put in hand - for roads, wharves, cellars, public buildings. The King had taken a direct and personal interest in the venture and had paid frequent visits during its construction but the building advanced more slowly than the sea. In 1287 a storm of extraordinary fury further wrecked the old town and washed away more buildings. Worse still, it is probably this storm which breached the shingle spit so that, at least at high tides, Winchelsea was an island. In 1288 the land was handed over to the burgesses of the town and by 1292 the men old Winchelsea had moved to their new town on Iham Hill.

The site selected for New Winchelsea was a peninsula jutting out into the levels. It may have sheltered a small port in Roman times and, in the thirteenth century, a village called Iham was on its western slopes. The top was probably farmland. Its northern cliff was washed by the River Brede, wider than it is now with good access to the sea.

Winchelsea had a considerable trade in the 1300s in wine from France and was also a fishing port. Many of its inhabitants spoke French. The King, an inveterate town planner, may well have taken a hand himself in the design, which resembles the town of Monsegur in southwest France, a part of his kingdom. The streets were laid out to cross each other more or less at right angles and, within the squares formed, suitable plots were laid out for each householder by name. The important merchants were concentrated towards the northern end and, in addition to their ground plots, were also given wharves on the Brede, built out from the shore and again allocated by name. Some of them were also provided with cellars built into their plots. The sites of nearly fifty cellars are known and recorded. You will see entrances to these cellars almost at road level in some of the houses in the northern part of the town. The cellars were finely constructed with vaulted roofs, dressed with Caen stone. Sizes vary but many are as much as 30' long and 15' wide. These cellars kept the wine at just the right temperature and in some cellars still do!

It is improbable that the King built any private houses, but he certainly was concerned with the public buildings - the churches, the town hall, the gates and the walls. The King decreed a perpetual rent on the town in return for his expenditure. At £ 14/11/53/4 per annum this was not excessive even in the thirteenth century. It has been collected, in addition to later rates and taxes, ever since. The model of the town in the Court Hall Museum constructed from information taken from the Rent Roll of 1292 provides a very good bird's eye view of the town as it then looked.

The marsh between Winchelsea and Rye was saltings and mudflats, entirely covered at high spring tides. The Brede was larger and flowed more or less in the present direction but in a winding channel with nothing between it and the sea except mud and the remnants of the overwhelmed shingle bank. Towards Rye it opened out into the main port with an outlet to the sea for both towns and then, as the Wainway, continued onwards where Camber now stands. To the east of the peninsula and westward up the Brede valley, a great deal of the marsh was already enclosed.

Within the town most of the houses were dwarfed beneath the great churches, and the whole town as far south as the present Hastings road was thick with houses facing the roadways round their squares; and even south of this the "suburbs" were fairly well tenanted. It is said that the population was then 6,000. The encircling walls, probably earth or wood but at the danger points stone, partly survive in the gardens of Pipewell and Mill Farm.