The town was then a flourishing seaport on the shingle, but in 1250 it was battered by a phenomenally high tide which ‘flowed twice without ebbing with a horrible roaring and a glint as of fire on the waves.’
Thirty-seven years later further floods virtually destroyed the town and changed the course of the River Rother.
So important was Winchelsea as a seaport that, when Old Winchelsea was washed away, King Edward I wasted no time in finding a safer site on the hilltop of Iham, where the present town and its church still stand.
Winchelsea flourished as a major seaport for only a few years before disaster struck.
During the Sixteenth Century Reformation, Winchelsea’s Dominican and Franciscan endowments were confiscated and later pulled down, including the hospitals.
By the eighteenth century John Wesley, who came to preach here, wrote of ‘that poor skeleton of Ancient Winchelsea with its large church now in ruins.’
After the Great War, the magnificent stained glass windows were installed as a war memorial dedicated to the men of the Cinque Ports and the ancient towns of Rye and Winchelsea who, whether on sea, land or in the air, gave their lives in the War of 1914-1918, and in thanksgiving for those who returned safely to their homes.
