Between 1550 and 1570, the Town Corporation organised many functions such as the "Sessions Dinner", the "Gentlemens Freeman's Dinner", "Mayoring Day" and the "Herring Feast". Queen Elizabeth I was also a guest at the inn around this time. The inn had a strong connection with the notorious Hawkhurst Gang which used the premises during the 1730s and 1740s. This large group of smugglers controlled territory from Kent to Dorset from their base at the Oak and Ivy Inn in Hawkhurst, but they used the Mermaid Inn as a secondary location. There are a myriad of secret tunnels, including one which ran from the cellars to the Old Bell Inn (built 1390) in The Mint, a street which runs parallel to the north of Mermaid Street. A revolving cupboard at the end of the tunnel in the Olde Bell would then be used by the gang for a quick getaway. A resident of Rye remembered the smugglers as; "when the Hawkhurst Gang were at the height of their pride and insolence having seen them (after successfully running a cargo of goods on the seashore), seated at the windows of this house (the Mermaid) carousing and smoking their pipes, with their loaded pistols lying on the table before them; no magistrate daring to interfere with them". By 1770, the building ceased functioning as an inn. By 1847, it was in use as a house and was owned by Charles Poile; the yard at the back, through which there was a footway leading to High Street, was called the Mermaid Yard. The inn functioned as a club in 1913, after it came under the ownership of May Aldington, mother of the novelist Richard Aldington. It was then a popular locale for many artists like Dame Ellen Terry, Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde's "Bosie"), A.C. and E.F. Benson and Rupert Brooke. In 1945, during World War II, the inn functioned as a garrison for Canadian officers. It was later purchased by Mr L. Wilson, a Canadian, who had been garrisoned there. The Mermaid Inn had the honour of hosting a luncheon to Her Majesty the Queen Mother when she was named as the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports during her visit to Rye in 1982. Under the name "Mermaid House and The Mermaid Hotel", the Mermaid Inn was listed at Grade II* by English Heritage on 12 October 1951. This defines it as a "particularly important" building of "more than special interest".