Nearly opposite the New Inn is “Wesley’s Tree” where John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preached his last open-air sermon in 1790.
He notes in his journal “I stood under a large tree and called to most of the inhabitants of the town ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand: repent and believe in the Gospel’. It seemed as if all that heard were, at the present, almost persuaded to be Christians”.
The present tree is not the one under which Wesley preached but is a child of the original.
More information can found on the Winchelsea Chapel website.