Steyning

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Steyning
Old Steyning
Steyning shown within West Sussex
Population	5,810
OS grid reference	TQ177110
Parish	Steyning
District	Horsham
Shire county	West Sussex
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	STEYNING
Postcode district	BN44
Police	Sussex
Fire	West Sussex
Ambulance	South East Coast
European Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Arundel and South Downs
List of places: UK • England • West Sussex

Coordinates: 50°53′13″N 0°19′40″W / 50.8868, -0.3279

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] History of Steyning

[edit] Saxon and Norman

Ethelwulf's tombstone, in the church porch - the two incised crosses indicate a royal burial

St Andrew's Church, Steyning

Steyning has existed since 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 - a Saxon grave slab (possibly his) remains in the church porch.

[edit] 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.^[1]

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 did not 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 [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.^[2]

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^[3] 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^[4] and organise a mass exhumation and transfer of all Bramber's dead to the churchyard of Saint Cuthman's Church in Steyning.

[edit] 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 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.

[edit] 17th century

In 1614, William Holland, Alderman of Chichester founded and endowed Steyning Grammar School.[2]

[edit] 19th century

The Clock Tower in Steyning High Street

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. The railway arrived in Steyning in 1861 and a station was opened to serve the town. It was to remain in service for over a century, closing in 1966 as result of the Beeching Axe. The route of the railway line has since been converted into a footpath and cycleway known as the Downs Link.

[edit] 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).

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Steyning was the home of legendary actor Sir Laurence Olivier, who died there in 1989 at the age of 82.

[edit] 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: 1 July 2005.
• Horsham District Council - Parish Population Estimates

[edit] External links

• Steyning Grammar School
• Steyning Town Football Club
• Steyning Athletic Club
• Steyning Cricket Club
• Steyning Strikers Football Club
• Steyning Camera Club
• Steyning Museum
• Steyning South Downs