Steyning, Sussex

Historical Description

Steyning, a small town and a parish in Sussex. The town stands on Stone Street, 1 mile W of the river Adur, with a station on the L.B. & S.C.R., 53 miles from London and 44 NNW of Shoreham, and a post, money order, and telegraph office. It figures in Alfred's will as Stenyng; is said to have been the burial-place of Alfred's father and of St Cuthman; had a Benedictine priory founded by the Confessor, made a cell to Fecamp Abbey in Normandy, and given by Edward to Sion Abbey; sent two members to Parliament from the time of Edward I. till disfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. It is a seat of petty sessions, consists chiefly of two spacious streets much improved in their edifices, and has two banks, a public hall, a police station, a Norman church large and once cruciform, a Wesleyan chapel, an endowed grammar school, two breweries, and an extensive parchment manufactory. There is a market held every Wednesday, and a fair on 11 Oct. Acreage of parish, 3414; population, 1705. There is a parish council consisting of thirteen members. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester; gross value, £340 with residence.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Steyning from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Steyning (St. Andrew))

Maps

Online maps of Steyning are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Sussex newspapers online:

• Mid Sussex Times
• Chichester Express and West Sussex Journal
• Sussex Agricultural Express
• Hastings and St Leonards Observer
• Sussex Advertiser
• Brighton Gazette
• Bexhill-on-Sea Observer