Burning boats, bonfires and fireworks

One of the great pleasures of travel is stumbling upon traditions that seem to have slipped through a crack in time. Those customs that appear to have little place in the modern world, yet are fiercely cherished by those who keep them alive. Even in the ever-polished United Kingdom, we still revel in the eccentric, think Morris dancers, cheese-rolling, and caber tossing. But among the oldest, and certainly the most dramatic, are the Bonfire Societies of Sussex.

Several towns host these ancient brotherhoods, with Lewes being the most famous, but Rye’s society whispers of origins even older, rooted deep in the town’s salt-stained past.

Each year, on a weekend close to November 5th, Rye transforms. Roads are closed, cars vanish from the cobbles, and thousands flock to the town, eager for the spectacle that night will bring. As dusk settles, the streets brim with costumed figures, smugglers with striped scarves, grim-faced soldiers, hooded monks, and swaggering pirates. These costumes representing the past are de rigeur, with each society owning its own ‘uniform’, marching beneath flaming torches that throw long, flickering shadows across the medieval walls.

A thunderous crack shatters the evening—the boom of a maroon—and the parade begins. At its head lumbers Scorcher, Rye’s own fire-belching dragon, snorting gouts of flame as he leads the procession through the ancient Landgate. Behind him thunder the Ryebellion drummers, their relentless rhythm echoing off the stone, summoning the hundreds who follow with torches that set the night alive in orange firelight. There is something both mesmerising and faintly sinister in the glow that dances over their costumes.

The march winds its way to the Salts, just beyond the town walls, where an enormous bonfire awaits—crowned, as tradition demands, with an old fishing boat. When the torchbearers arrive, they form a great ring around the structure and, one by one, hurl their torches into the stack of pallets at its base. Within moments, flames roar upward, licking at the hull until the boat itself catches, crackles, and vanishes into the inferno. The heat becomes savage and even spectators behind the barriers edge backward from its intensity.

When the boat has all but surrendered to the fire, and the blaze sinks to a steady roar, the fireworks begin. A breathtaking quarter hour of colour and thunder where stars burst, rockets spiral, and streaks of light carve the darkness. Then, almost abruptly, silence returns. The bonfire continues to burn, casting its warm glow over the thinning crowds as visitors drift home or seek out a welcoming pub to quench a well-earned thirst.

This fiery celebration, of course, owes its date to the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. The thwarted attempt to kill King James I and blow up Parliament. In some towns, an effigy of an unpopular figure is burned atop the pyre, but in Rye it is traditionally a boat. This nod to history dates back to the 14th century, when, during the Hundred Years’ War, Rye’s sailors joined a retaliatory raid on Calais. So many French vessels were seized that several Rye boats had to be abandoned, and to prevent their falling into enemy hands, they were torched where they lay.

The outline of the traditional boat can still just be seen as the bonfire is lit

Through the centuries that followed, the tradition would change shape. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, a boat would be dragged through the town to the bonfire. The chosen vessel might be “borrowed” from an unpopular owner, who could only watch his property go up in flames and count himself fortunate if he escaped without being tarred and feathered. Rye was a rough place then, and bonfire night became an excuse for gangs armed with staves and cutlasses to fight running battles in the streets.

Today, mercifully, the weapons have vanished, replaced by collection buckets. The societies now collect donations for local charities, transforming what was once a riotous night of violence into an evening of communal excitement, spectacle, and goodwill.

And so, from two distant and turbulent events, one seven centuries old, the other four, Rye has inherited a tradition that bewilders some, delights many, and continues to burn brightly. Long live tradition, and pity any authority foolish enough to try to quench it.