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54 BYGONE SUSSEX.
would be the New Gate, leading from Winchelsea to Pett and Fairlight.
In the High Street of Rye is the Grammar School, built at the cost of Thomas Peacock, gentleman, in 1636, and endowed by him two years later. For some years there was on the front a sun-dial, given by Col. de Lacy Evans, who at one time served Rye in Parliament, but this monitor of time has been removed to the Town Hall, and the quaint brick building with its projecting pilasters is probably little altered from what it was when Denis Duval passed through its arched doorway into the schoolroom beyond. Thackeray calls its Pocock's. Denis boarded, it will be remembered, with the hypocritical Rudge, who combined with the business, openly pursued, of a grocer, the concealed trade of a smuggler, and added to both the pious pretentions of " chief man among the Wesleyans."
The first visit to Rye of the Apostle of Methodism was in October, 1758. He preached there again in November, 1767, "when," he says, "a poor prodigal who was cut to the heart the first time I was there, was one of the audience; but exceeding drunk." On December 11th, 1769, he was again at Rye, and |
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