Steyning

The Clock Tower in Steyning High Street

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 of Steyning had a population of 5,810 in 2002.

History of Steyning

Saxon and Norman

Steyning has existed since at least Anglo-Saxon times. Legend has it that St. Cuthman built a church (later dedicated to him, now St Andrew's [1]) 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.

To thank his Norman protectors from 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 ecclesiatical jurisdiction then passed directly to the Pope. (In the same way, Fécamp Abbey itself answered to no Norman bishop but 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.From: Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066-1154 Volume I, edited by H W C Davis (Oxford, 1913)

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 another 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, rather than restore it to them. This made commercial and strategic (Harold did not want a Norman toehold on a potential invasion port) sense, but William responded by swearing on a knife before setting out for England to recover it for the monks:

Of the land of Steyning [county of 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.Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum 1066-1154 Volume I, edited by H W C Davis (Oxford, 1913)

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 of the two 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 HastingsThe monks claimed the same freedoms and land tenure in Hastings as King Edward had given them at Steyning. Though on a technicality William was bound to uphold all aspects of the status quo before Edward's death, the monks had already been expelled 10 years before that death. King William wanted to hold Hastings for himself for strategic reasons and ignored the problem until 1085, when he confirmed their Steyning claims but swapped the Hastings claim for land in Bury St Edmund's. 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 landsIncluding a rabbit warren, a park, eighteen burgage plots, a causeway, and a channel to fill his moat 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 did not 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, though, 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.[2]

19th century

Later, Steyning was a rotten borough, continuing to return two MPs until it was disfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. Charles Parnell was married here.

Modern Steyning

In Steyning, there is access to a variety of facilities. These include 4 public houses, 4 estate agents and 4 banks. Furthermore, there is 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: The Star, The Chequers, The White Horse and The Norfolk Arms. The restaurant Cuthmans also serves as a wine bar in the evenings. Steyning also holds a members club and bar known in town as the Cricket Club, situated on the Steyning cricket field.

References

* 'Steyning', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume VI Part 1: Bramber Rape (Southern Part) (1980), pp. 220-26. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=18254. Date accessed: 01 July 2005.
* Horsham District Council - Parish Population Estimates

Steyning: Encyclopedia BETA

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