SMALLHYTHE

 Smallhythe lies on the stream known as the Reading Sewer and was a prosperous harbour until late Tudor times. It is most notable for Smallhythe Place, once home to Dame Ellen Terry.

It stood on a branch of the Rother estuary and was a busy shipbuilding port in the 15th century, before the silting up and draining of the Romney Marshes. 

Timber from the Wealden Forests was collected in Tenterden , then sent to Smallhythe for the building of ships. The River Rother flowing past here was of sufficient width and depth to accommodate the main warships of the period. The shipyards became famous from the 14th to the middle 16th century.
One of Henry VIII's warships 'The Grand Masters' was built in the shipyards of this port, and in 1537 Henry VIII visited the construction site to view the building of this great vessel.

Small Hythe's quays and warehouses were destroyed in a fire in 1514 and were never rebuilt.

Smallhythe Place is a half-timbered house built in the late 15th or early 16th century. It was already three hundred years old by the time its most famous owner, actress Ellen Terry bought the property. Terry first saw Smallhythe in 1890, but it was not for sale, and she had to wait until 1899 before she could purchase it.The house was originally called 'Port House' and before the sea receded it served a thriving shipyard: in Old English hythe means "landing place". It was the home of the Victorian actress Ellen Terry from 1899 to her death in the house in 1928. The house contains Ellen Terry's theatre collection, while the cottage grounds include her rose garden, orchard, nuttery and the working Barn Theatre.

Terry first saw the house in the company of Henry Irving, the manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London's Covent Garden, with whom she shared a famous theatrical partnership for nearly 24 years. The house was opened to the public by Terry's daughter Edith Craig in 1929, as a memorial to her mother. The National Trust supported Craig in her running of the museum from 1939, and took over the property when she died in 1947. Smallhythe Place contains many personal and theatrical mementoes, including two walls devoted to David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Other exhibits include a message from Sarah Bernhardt, a chain worn by Fanny Kemble, Sir Arthur Sullivan's monocle and a visiting card from Alexandre Dumas. There are also several paintings by the artist Clare Atwood, one of the romantic companions of Edith Craig.

In an adjoining room is a letter from Oscar Wilde begging Terry to accept a copy of his first play. There is also a selection of sumptuous costumes dating from Terry’s time at the Lyceum Theatre. In 1929, Craig set up the Barn Theatre in the house's grounds, where the plays of William Shakespeare were performed every year on the anniversary of her mother's death. This tradition continues to this day.

Ellen Terry was an actress who became one of the most popular stage performers in both Great Britain and North America.  Adored for her beauty and charm by her many fans, who included Oscar Wild, she was also a theatre manager and public speaker.

Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London and toured throughout Great Britain in her teens. At 16 she married the 46 year old artist George Frederic Watts, but the two split within a year. Terry returned to the stage and began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for a further six years.

In 1874 Terry resumed acting and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics. For more than the next two decades Terry was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. In 1903 she took over management of London's Imperial Theatre before again touring and lecturing. She continued to find success on stage until 1920, while also appearing in films from 1916 to 1922.

Terry’s career lasted nearly seven decades and after her death, the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum was founded by her daughter, Edith Craig, at Smallhythe Place