, in the church porch – the two incised crosses may indicate a royal burial
Saxon The name Steyning possibly derives from the
Old English stāning meaning 'the stone people' or the 'dwellers at the stony place'. Steyning has existed since
Anglo-Saxon times. Legend has it that
St Cuthman built a church, at one time dedicated to him, later to St Andrew, and now jointly to St Andrew and St Cuthman, 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. In 858, according to the
Annals of St Neots,
Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, the father of
Alfred the Great, was buried in the church. Æthelwulf's body was later transferred to
Winchester, probably by Alfred. A carved Saxon grave slab (possibly Æthelwulf's) 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 of Steyning, made by Edward the Confessor, 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 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. This gained him a ship from Fécamp 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 St 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.
Mid to Late Medieval Even the 1086 judgment did not settle the Steyning versus Bramber dispute once and for all; it continued for centuries afterwards, exacerbated by the Lord of Bramber founding his own religious establishments in his neighbouring parish. Meanwhile, in the 14th century, the
River Adur began to silt up and the town's use as a port became difficult leading to a loss of trade and population. The monks of
Fécamp Abbey 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 members of parliament from 1278 and as a
rotten borough made up of a depopulated port became similar to
Dunwich until the
Reform Act 1832.
17th century In 1614, William Holland,
Alderman of
Chichester founded and endowed
Steyning Grammar School.
19th century The
Steyning Line railway from London to
Shoreham arrived in Steyning in 1861 and a
station was opened to serve the town. The railway remained 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. The nearest railway station to the town today is
Shoreham-by-Sea, some 5–6 miles away by road. The
Old Town Hall, currently used as an estate agents, at 38 High Street, was built in 1886. The legendary Irish politician
Charles Stewart Parnell married
'Kitty' O'Shea (niece of
Lord Hatherley) here in 1891, the culmination of an
adulterous affair that saw his fall from power, catastrophically dividing Irish politics. Besides much agriculture, brewing, a tannery (Tanyard Lane) and, to a small extent, brickmaking, more than 25 men were employed in sheep related trades as
fellmongers, four or more were
parchment makers, five were millers and there was a surgeon, James M. Burfield an oil painter, and a watch maker in the town during the 1881 census. ==Modern town==