Haunted Fireplace

This page didn't work at first because it's haunted. 2nd biggest inglenook fireplace in the country and most haunted pub in England. Duck your head under and look up and you’ll see the priest hole where Catholic priests would hide from Henry VIII’s thugs.

Chat nicely to the barman and he’ll tell you ghost stories of when he was security of the pub during Covid and heard arguments of the ghosts in room number 17. Again. They don’t like it when you move the furniture.

So they are particularly active in January when the hotel is closed for renovations and the ghost hunters move in, for £10 you can join a seance.

Ghost tours available the last Sunday of the month.

Details as of 2025, check the Mermaid Inn, Rye, website ( for up to date dates and prices.)

Oh, and also it has a revolving bookcase that leads to a secret tunnel to the Old Bell Pub for smugglers. You can see the bookcase on a ghost tour at Halloween, or if you book to stay in the right room… if you dare.

During the writing of this post my iPhone did various weird things. It wouldn’t let me cut and paste the website link into this article. Spooky. Was I haunted? Do the ghosts not want more visitors? Who knows? You decide. 👻🧛🎃💀

Then this website had a warning from the other side?:

Warning: Constant WP_MEMORY_LIMIT already defined in /code/wp-config.php on line 89

The Mermaid Inn, Rye. Don’t come, say the Ghosts.

Then as I was writing this, someone banged their head on the way through a low doorway.

There's another Windmill in an unexpected location