(3941, 64 km S, Mornington Peninsula Shire)
Tootgarook, one of the earliest cattle runs on the Mornington Peninsula, was taken up near the site of Rye in 1838 by Edward Hobson. Lime-burners, who moved into the area in the 1840s, called it White Cliffs, and in the 1850s it became the largest of the lime-burning centres on the Mornington Peninsula, servicing the needs of the building trade in rapidly growing Melbourne. Many local buildings were constructed of limestone. Surveyed and gazetted as a town in 1861, Rye was named after one of the Cinque Ports in Sussex, England. There were attempts to promote it as a seaside resort like Portsea and Sorrento. Bounded by Bass Strait in the south and Port Phillip Bay in the north, Rye became popular as a camping resort in the 20th century, and is now mainly residential in its northern section.