Rye Harbour beach slipway
Rye Harbour is a small, tidal fishing and leisure harbour on the River Rother, close to where the river reaches Rye Bay on the East Sussex coast; it is a working commercial harbour with a large fishing fleet, controlled by the Environment Agency as the statutory harbour authority. The shingle frontage around it forms part of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, managed by Sussex Wildlife Trust.
The slipway gives onto the River Rother a short way above where it meets Rye Bay. The harbour dries out completely at low water and is navigable only from about two hours before high water to three hours after, with the flood stream reaching up to five knots on spring tides. The channel narrows to about 30 metres between two training walls: the western one submerges at high water, the eastern is sloping and marked by starboard-hand beacons.
The surrounding shingle has been built up by the sea over the past 800 years, and the beach has advanced roughly a kilometre south of where it once lay. A Martello Tower raised in 1809-10 now stands well back from the shore, close to where the coastline ran when it was built; heritage sources differ on its number, with the Rye Harbour tower most often recorded as No. 28.
The shore and back-shore lie within the 465-hectare Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, a mix of vegetated shingle, saltmarsh, saline lagoons, reedbeds and flooded gravel pits, and are covered by the Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay SSSI, a Special Protection Area and a Ramsar wetland. More than 280 bird species have been recorded here, over 90 of them breeding, including Little, Common and Sandwich Terns, and the river's mudflats support common seal haul-out areas.
Nearby
Cafe inside the Sussex Wildlife Trust's reserve visitor centre, open daily 10am to 4pm (last orders 3.45pm).
WebsiteCafe on the slipway at The Point, Rye Harbour, opposite the lifeboat station.
Static caravan and holiday-home park run by Park Holidays UK, bookable by the public; OpenStreetMap records no touring, tent or camper pitches here.
WebsiteConditions to check
The harbour dries out completely at low tide; boats should not approach more than 2 hours before or more than 3 hours after high water.
SourceThe flood stream in the River Rother reaches up to 5 knots on spring tides, running hardest between high water and an hour after.
SourceThe channel narrows to 30 metres between two training walls: the west wall submerges at high water and is marked by port-hand beacons, the east wall is sloping and marked by starboard-hand beacons.
SourceRye is a working commercial and fishing harbour; when International Port Traffic Signals are showing for a piloted vessel, all boats must keep clear of the entrance and the main channel.
SourceThe 42 metre wide harbour entrance is marked by a red tripod beacon flashing every 8 seconds; the East Pier, 240 metres further in, is submerged at high water springs.
SourceThe Ministry of Defence's Lydd Firing Range lies to the east of the harbour, extending 3 miles along the coast with prohibited seaward areas of 1.5 to 2.5 nautical miles.
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