This Saturday, November 14, the streets will be closed off, crowds will gather, drums will beat, torches will be lit – but hopefully no boats will be burnt – for it is Bonfire Night.
Or, to be more precise, it is the Rye Fawkes Pageant, organised by the Rye and District Bonfire Society.
Roads will close at 7:30pm and the town will be shut off from the outside world. The procession will start from Tilling Green at 7:50pm and proceed around the town.
It will go along Cinque Ports Street before turning right under the Landgate and heading up to the High Street, and then down the Mint. Then it will go right along Wish Ward, and right again back along Cinque Ports Street, before turning left, this time, to head down to the Salts and the bonfire.
The bonfire will be lit at 8:45pm (approximately) followed by fireworks at 9pm – safely across the river Rother on the distant Eastern side.
Around 20 bonfire societies are expected to be in the procession along with drummers, bands, fire carts, the fire breathing dragon (shown below) and the burning boat.
In times past the events sometimes got out of hand – with a lot more going up in flames than originally planned.
Jon Izod’s cartoon (right), published with the kind permission of the Rye and District Bonfire Society, is not intended (hopefully) to encourage any mayhem – but one can never tell.
Rye’s tradition of burning its boats seems to have started long before Guy Fawkes in 1605 and may well date from the 14th century when the French on at least one occasion burnt most of Rye to the ground.
Burning one’s boats may have seemed a better option then than letting the French capture them and sail them away. The dragon (below) is of more recent date (the 1950s) and has no link to either the French or Guy Fawkes.
Photos: Tony Nunn. Cartoon: John Izod