Rye Coastal Inlet: English Countryside

This water-colour of Rye was copied by Des from a travel book, one of a series called”Beautiful England“. This ‘was the title of a series of short, illustrated travel/guide books first published in Britain by Blackie & Son around 1910 and continuing in print until the 1950s. Each title featured a particular region, town or city in England and was illustrated by water-colour landscape painter, E. W. Haslehust.’ We presume that Des found a copy in the Changi ‘library’.
The caption in the book reads: ‘Rye: A conical hill rises abruptly out of the encompassing marshes, and all around that little hill, wherever it can gain secure hold, clings the town.’

The book ends with this: ‘We close with a short passage from the volume on the Cinque Ports. It was written concerning the old military canal at Winchelsea, but in its brooding spirit of contentment it applies but little less to the whole of this wonderful area. “Nowhere is one so absolutely alone; but nowhere do inanimate things—the water plants and the lichens on the stiles—afford so much company. It must not be hurried through, or it is a dull, flat stretch. But linger and saunter through it, and you are caught by the heels in a moment. You will catch a malady of tranquillity—a kind of idle fever that will fall on you in distant places for years after. And one must needs be the better, in times of storm and stress, for that restful remembrance.” ‘
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33042/33042-h/33042-h.htm