Everything about Steyning totally explained
Steyning is a small town and
civil parish in the
Horsham District of
West Sussex,
England. It is located at the north end of the
River Adur gap in the
South Downs, four miles (6.4km) north of
Shoreham-by-Sea. The smaller villages of
Bramber and
Upper Beeding constitute, with Steyning, a built-up area at this crossing-point of the river.
Demographics
The parish has a land area of 1574.1 hectares (3888 acres). In the 2001 census 5812 people lived in 2530 households, of whom 2747 were economically active.
History of Steyning
Saxon and Norman
Steyning has existed since
Anglo-Saxon times. Legend has it that
St. Cuthman built a church (later dedicated to him, now St Andrew's
(External Link
)) where he stopped after carrying his mother in a
wheelbarrow. Several of the signs that can be seen on entering Steyning bear an image of his feat. King
Alfred the Great's father,
Ethelwulf of Wessex, was originally buried in that church, before being transferred to
Winchester - a Saxon grave slab (possibly his) remains in the church porch.
Norman
To thank his Norman protectors for refuge during his exile,
Edward the Confessor granted his royal minster church in Steyning, with its large and wealthy manor lands, to the Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity at
Fécamp, to take effect after the death of Aelfwine, the
Bishop of Winchester, who had charge of Steyning. The bishop died in 1047 and ecclesiastical jurisdiction then passed directly to
the Pope. (In the same way,
Fécamp Abbey itself answered to no Norman bishop, only to the Pope.) This was confirmed in a charter by William:
» Confirming the gift, made by Edward the Confessor, of Steyning [co.Sussex]. This charter acquitted the grantees of all earthly service and subjection to barons, princes, and others, and gave them all royal liberties, custom, and justice over all matters arising in their land; and threatened any who should infringe these liberties with an amercement of £100 of gold.
This was an addition to the nearby port with land around
Rye,
Winchelsea and
Hastings, already given to the same Abbey by
King Cnut, to honour a promise made by his wife
Emma of Normandy's first husband
King Aethelred. By then Steyning was already a thriving and important port with a market, a royal mint, the church founded by St Cuthman, and one other church, as
Domesday Book relates 60 years later.
Godwin, Earl of Wessex expelled the Norman monks in 1052 and seized Steyning for himself, and his son
Harold decided to keep it upon his accession. This made commercial and strategic sense as Harold didn't want a Norman toehold in a potential invasion port, but William responded by swearing on a knife before setting out for England to recover it for the monks:
» Of the land of Steyning [countyof Sussex]; the Duke gave seisin to the Church by the token of a knife, before he went to England; the grant to take effect if God should give him victory in England.
» Witnesses: Aymeri the vicomte;
Richard fitzGilbert; Pons.
This gained him a ship from Fecamp and, upon his victory at
Hastings, he honoured his promise and returned it to the monks. However, its strategic importance made William place
William de Braose in a new
castle at nearby
Bramber, who began a vigorous boundary dispute and power tussle with the monks, William's settlement having lacked definite terms in the first place. Domesday Book, completed in 1086, brought this to a head. It found that de Braose had built a bridge at Bramber and demanded tolls from ships travelling further along the river to the port at Steyning. The monks challenged Bramber's right to bury its parishioners in the churchyard at William de Braose's new church of Saint Nicholas, and demanded its burial fees, despite it being built to serve the castle not the town. The monks produced forged documents to defend their position and were unhappy with the failure of their claim on
Hastings In 1086 the King called his sons, barons and bishops to court (the last time an English king presided personally, with his full court, to decide a matter of law) to settle this. It took a full day, and the Abbey won over the court, forcing de Braose to curtail his bridge tolls, give up various encroachments onto the abbey's lands and organise a mass exhumation and transfer of all Bramber's dead to the churchyard of Saint Cuthman's Church in Steyning.
Medieval
Even the 1086 settlement didn't settle the Steyning-Bramber dispute once and for all, and it continued for centuries afterwards, exacerbated by the Lord of Bramber founding his own religious establishments, and even though, in the 14th century, the river began to silt up and the town began to decay. The monks retained control of Steyning until the 15th century, and re-dedicated the church of St Cuthman to
St Andrew in the 13th Century.
Steyning began returning two MPs from
1278.
17th century
In
1614, William Holland,
Alderman of
Chichester founded and endowed
Steyning Grammar School.
(External Link)
19th century
Later, Steyning was a
rotten borough, continuing to return two MPs until it was disfranchised by the
Reform Act of 1832. The legendary Irish politician
Charles Stewart Parnell married 'Kitty' O'Shea here in 1891, the culmination of the affair that saw his fall from power, catastrophically dividing Irish politics.
Modern Steyning
In Steyning, there's access to a variety of facilities. These include 4
public houses, 4
estate agents and 4
banks. Furthermore, there's a state-of-the-art leisure centre, which was built with
National Lottery funding. The town is home to Steyning Grammar School (a paradoxically titled state comprehensive), which has a body of around 2500 students, with a sixth form comprising over 400. The school has a
catchment area that extends as far as
Dial Post and sometimes Worthing. A spring fair is held on the spring bank holiday (the last Monday in May).
Nightlife
Steyning has four pubs and a wine bar: The Star Inn, The Chequer Inn, The White Horse, The Norfolk Arms and Whites . The restaurant Cuthmans also serves as a wine bar in the evenings. Steyning also has a members' club and bar known in town as the Cricket Club, situated on the Steyning cricket field.
Trivia
Steyning has been renowned for many years as the last town in the country to have seen the burning of a witch at the stake.
Steyning was the home of legendary actor
Sir Laurence Olivier, who died there in
1989 at the age of 82.
References
Further Information
Get more info on 'Steyning'.
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