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Of the three original gateways, two are standing,—the STRAND GATE, formerly leading to the harbour, but now leading by the new Military road to Rye, and the NEW GATE, leading on the south of Icklesham to Pett and Fairlight: these were three quarters of a mile apart. The present roads to Rye and across the marsh to Icklesham and Hastings were formed at a much more recent period. We give an engraving of these two gates. The original PIPEWELL or LAND GATE, now known as the FERRY GATE, led over the Ferry to the then direct road to Rye, which was by way of Udimore. This gate, which was situated one quarter of a mile northwest of the Strand Gate, has been re-built, and we shall have occasion to notice the present gate hereafter.

Besides the two churches of ST. THOMAS (the choir of which is standing) and ST. GILES within, and of ST. LEONARD without the walls, the house of the GRAY FRIARS, and the hospital of ST. BARTHOLOMEW, which had existed in the There were also old town, were transferred to the new.

hospitals of ST. JOHN, and of the HOLY ROOD:1 and there

1 Grose mentions a tradition that Winchelsea formerly contained fourteen or fifteen chapels: upon which he hazards the conjecture that these

was afterwards added, in the reign of Edw. II, a house of the Dominicans BLACK FRIARS, or Friars Predicant. All of which we shall describe in the chapter on Ecclesiastical Foundations. Without New Gate stood the HOLY CROSS of Winchelsea.

There were within the walls, two greens or open spaces, one of twelve acres called the KING'S GREEN, on the road from the church of St. Thomas towards New Gate, and the other called Cook's GREEN, above the hanging of the hill, at the north-east side of the town, near the Strand Gate.

Water, so scarce at Rye, was amply supplied to this town from six open wells:-viz., PIPE WELL, situate near the Ferry, close by the entrance of the town by the former Rye road: ST. KATHERINE'S WELL, situate half way up the hill leading from Rye, and below Cook's Green, the water of which is slightly chalybeate: the STRAND WELL, on the hanging of the hill (above the former tan yard) destroyed a few years since by the falling in of the cliff: the FRIARS' WELL, now enclosed, situated in a field recently called the Peartree or Wellfield, to the east of the Gray Friars; the NEW WELL on the outside of New Gate; and the VALE WELL, now called ST. LEONARD'S WELL, at the north-west of the town, under the old castle,-of whose waters the popular belief yet remains, that when once drunken the drinker never leaves Winchelsea, that is, that wherever he roams his heart is still there; each drinker realising Goldsmith's lines,

The well-doing of the inhabitants was further secured by two market places, called Monday's Market and Little Mon

were appendages to so many Monastic Foundations. Grose, however, must have mistaken the many vaults or crypts throughout the town for chapels. Leland and Lambard both correctly state the number of religious houses.

day's Market, and by several Windmills. One was in the liberty of St. Leonard, near the spot on which a windmill now exists. Two others were within the grounds afterwards of the Black Friars, one being near the King's Green. There was a stone mill near Pipewell, and a windmill in the parish of St. Giles, in a place then called "Le Bochery," now called the Great Millbank, which, on 1st May, 1407, Richard Londenays, of Brede, son of Robert de Londenays, then late of Winchelsea, and his wife, who was sister and heiress of William Oxenbridge, enfeoffed to John Gyles, of Winchelsea, miller, of whom it was purchased in 1434, by John Godfrey, and came through Matilda, widow of Simon Farncombe, the heiress of the Godfreys, in 1477, to the abbey of Battle.1

1

Among the antique seals found within the town is one bearing the impression of a lion combatant or rampant, the arms of the Londenays, with the legend SVM LEO FORTIS. It was doubtless the private seal of one of the family, and from the style may be referred to a period not later than the middle of the fourteenth century.

The town abounds with crypts and vaults, many of which have handsome groined roofs and corbel heads well executed, affording ample store-room for the wines and other merchandise in which the merchants traded.

In the Battle Abbey Records there are mentioned in connection with the parish of Icklesham, the great ditch of Tham ; the bank of the hill of Iham; the bridge of Iham; the road which leads from that bridge towards Winchelsea, that is by the Ashes Farm, entering by New Gate; and the King's high road which led from Battle towards Winchelsea.2

The thirty-nine quarters or squares, exclusive of the sites. of the two churches, into which the new town was divided, varied in quantity. The majority were from 1a. to 2a. and 23a. each, but some towards the south were 3a. and 3a.

1 Battle Charters, pp. 96-101-114-120.

2 Addl. MSS., 6344, p. 425.

Notwithstanding the loss of fences they may yet be traced with tolerable accuracy. A glance at the map will enable us to follow them. The first quarter was at Cook's Green, at the north-east corner of the town: thence the quarters extended westward along the north side of the town in the second quarter was the Salutation: in the third was Westbrook: in the fourth the Friars', that is, the Blackfriars' Orchard: in the fifth was the Roundle Piece. Having reached the northern point, the quarters went back again to the east, and thence again to the west, and so worked from east to west, southward, to the New Gate; in the sixth quarter were the Pendents of the hill: in the seventh was the Bear Square: in the eighth quarter was the Court House: in the ninth was Paradise (the house of Mr. Dawes): in the twelfth, on the east, was the Cliff: between the thirteenth and fourteenth quarters stood the Church of St. Thomas: in the fourteenth was the Ballad Singer's Plat: in the seventeeth, again on the east, was Tinker's Garden: in the nineteenth was Little Monday's Market and Trojan's Hall, otherwise Jews' Hall: the Church of St. Giles was between the twentieth and twenty-first quarters: next the twenty-first quarter was the Great Millbank: in the twenty-second quarter, at the extreme west, were the Furze Banks: in the twenty-third quarter, beginning again on the east but westward of the Gray Friars, was Little Monday's Market: in the twentyeighth quarter was Monday's Market: in the twenty-ninth quarter was Packham Field: in the thirtieth quarter was Great Gallows Hill: in the thirty-fourth quarter was the Hospital of St. John: in the thirty-fifth was land near the Pewes in the thirty-seventh quarter was the Coney Field, now part of the Gray Friars in the thirty-eighth quarter was land, afterwards belonging to the Hospital of the Holyrood: and in the thirty-ninth and last quarter were the Hospitals of the Holyrood and of St. Bartholomew.

:

The parsonages of St. Thomas and St. Giles were not in

any quarter; and there were several marshes, the pendents of the hill, and land in the strand, without the quarters, but within the boundary of the town itself. The whole space occupied by the new town, and by that portion of the old parish, which is now above water, is 1120 acres.1

BOUNDARY OF LIBERTY.-From a MS. in the hand-writing of the Rev. Dr. Harris, the historian of Kent, formerly in the possession of Mr. Shadwell, and a copy of which was with the late Mr. Stileman, we find that the bounds of the Liberty of Winchelsea as they were taken and enrolled the 7th day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of Edward the Third, A.D. 1330, were as under :-" First go from the Cross, without Newgate, north, along by the Town Ditch, and so through the midst of Pewes' Marsh to a ditch of the Manor of Icklesham, leading to St. Leonard's Fleet, till you come right against a well in Pook Lane, called Vale Well, and so east, up by a little lane, lying between Crooked Acre and Bell Morrice, to the King's High-street; and then north-east, through the lands of Thomas Alard to the street end, and so to the ring of Stone Mill, and so downe to Pipewell Cawsey's end, and so by the street at the right hand leading to the north and to Grind-pepper Well; and then as the old Ferryway leadeth to the Channell, and so over the Channell to a fleet called White Fleet; and as the water leadith by the Hopad Marsh into Kettle Fleet, and so taking in the whole roade of the Puddle and the Cambre along upon the Sea Coast where the Hermitage did stand, until a man can see Beachy Head, neare Bourne; and from thence through the sea to a wall called Court Wall, and so, west, to the Cross without Newgate aforesaid.”

1

1 Population Returns, 1841. As the sea is receding it is difficult to ascertain the exact quantity: there are only 720a. 3r. 9p., exclusive of houses and gardens, in the Tithe Commutation.

2 Now called St. Leonard's Well.

3 Afterwards called the Strand Well.