The sea has been the constant in Winchelsea’s long history of destruction, rebuilding, prosperity and decline.
Today’s town was established in the late 13th century after the sea destroyed the original Winchelsea, which is now below the waves of Camber Bay. Such was the importance of the town, though, that the monarch, Edward I, commissioned ‘new’ Winchelsea on an inland hill and with access to the sea via the River Brede.
Thanks to the sea, Winchelsea became a bustling and prosperous port. Ship owners exported wool and iron products across Europe and imported vast quantities of wine from Gascony, then part of the English Crown. Many pilgrims made journeys to Santiago de Compostela in Spain on Winchelsea ships.
Long before England had a Royal Navy, those same ships and sailors were also front line defenders of the realm through Winchelsea’s membership of the Cinque Ports Confederation. And in their spare time, the men of Winchelsea were ‘privateers’, or pirates as they are more commonly known. How Winchelsea prospered!
Unusually for that period in English history, Winchelsea’s road layout was on a grid pattern, reminiscent of the bastide towns of what is now south-western France. It was a walled medieval town and port with a population of up to 6,000 people – at a time when London’s population was around 40,000. There were three churches, Franciscan and Dominican monasteries and two weekly markets.
Then the sea dictated another chapter in the story of Winchelsea. The coastline shifted, and continues to do so today. Cliffs to the west are still being eroded by the sea and longshore drift is taking rock and sediment eastwards to Dungeness.
Just as Winchelsea’s access to the sea was eroding, the town’s wooden, single-masted ships – the ‘cogs’ of the town symbol – were steadily growing in size. The combination ended the town’s golden period. By the 15th century, the reason for Winchelsea’s existence was gone.
The town went into 300 or so years of decline. One 17th century traveller dismissed it as a “miserable village consisting of only 10 or 12 houses”.
Fortunes improved a little in the 18th century. Huguenot weavers, persecuted in France because of their religion, established a small manufacturing business in the town. It was not long-lived, however.
Under threat of invasion by France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, construction of Martello towers and the defensive Royal Military Canal brought an influx of soldiers and labourers. The threat of invasion gone, Winchelsea began to attract some famous creative residents, such as Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Sir John Millais and Dame Ellen Terry.
But Winchelsea never fully recovered. The monasteries disappeared after the Reformation. The port, two of the churches and the town’s walls are gone, though its three medieval gates survive. Today it is a quarter of its hey-day size and its population is little more than 500 people.
That makes Winchelsea a rarity in 21st century England – a town smaller today than when it was established over 700 years ago.
