Haunted Hosts

The Mermaid Inn is one of the most historically significant inns in the south of England. Its cellars date from 1156, making them among the oldest surviving inn structures in the country. The original building was constructed from wattle and daub, lath and plaster, and operated as an alehouse that brewed its own beer and charged a penny per night for lodging. Rye was a thriving Cinque Port, and the inn served sailors arriving at the harbour as well as ships provisioning for the Cinque Ports Fleet. In the 1420s, the building was entirely rebuilt whilst retaining the Norman cellars beneath. Further renovations during the 16th century added Tudor-style elements that remain visible today. Catholic priests fleeing the Continental Reformation in the 1530s sheltered at the inn, leaving behind the inscription J.H.S. (Jesus Hominum Salvator) carved into the oak panelling of what is now known as Syn's Lounge. Between 1550 and 1570, the Town Corporation held official functions at the inn including the Sessions Dinner, the Gentlemen's Freeman's Dinner, Mayoring Day and the Herring Feast. The building's most notorious chapter came in the 1730s and 1740s when the Hawkhurst Gang, a violent network of smugglers controlling territory from Kent to Dorset, used the Mermaid Inn as a secondary stronghold alongside their main base at the Oak and Ivy Inn in Hawkhurst. The gang operated with complete impunity, sitting openly at the inn's windows with loaded pistols on the table before them while no magistrate dared to interfere. Secret tunnels connected the cellars to the Old Bell Inn on The Mint, with a revolving cupboard at the tunnel's end providing a swift escape route. By 1770, the building ceased operating as an inn, and by 1847 it was in use as a private house owned by Charles Poile. In 1913, May Aldington, mother of novelist Richard Aldington, acquired the property and ran it as a club. Dame Ellen Terry, Lord Alfred Douglas, A.C. and E.F. Benson, and Rupert Brooke all frequented the establishment during this period. Canadian officers were garrisoned at the inn during the Second World War in 1945, and a Canadian officer named L. Wilson later purchased the building. In 1982, the Queen Mother attended a luncheon at the inn when she was named Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. The exterior featured in the 1983 film Yellowbeard, which proved to be Marty Feldman's final project. The inn has been owned by Judith Blincow since 1993.