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The Mermaid Inn

Rye, East Sussex

The inn where the Hawkhurst Gang drank with loaded pistols on the tables.

The Mermaid Inn's cellars date from 1156, and the building was rebuilt in 1420. In the 1730s and 1740s it was a favourite haunt of the Hawkhurst Gang, the most feared smugglers in England, who were said to drink here with loaded pistols on the tables while the authorities looked away.

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When
Rebuilt 1420
Where
50.9510, 0.7330
Group
Pirates

Visiting

Still a hotel and bar on cobbled Mermaid Street.

Cover of Blood and Gold by Cale Mills
Read the full story in the book

Blood and Gold

Sixteen true stories of mutiny, mercy, treasure and the gallows from the Golden Age of Piracy: Henry Every, Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts, Edward England, Howell Davis, Christopher Moody, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Charles Vane, Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Israel Hands, Calico Jack, Edward Low, Captain William Kidd and Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. Where the record is uncertain, the book says so.

Buy on AmazonAll books by Cale Mills

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