Travelling from the
west with his crippled mother, whom he conveyed in a wheelbarrow, he
was forced to mend the broken cords with elder twigs. Some haymakers in
a field jeered at him, and on that field, now called the Penfold, a
shower has always fallen since whenever the hay is drying. The elder
twigs finally gave way where Steyning was one day to be and here
Cuthman decided to halt and build a shelter for his mother and himself.
Afterwards he raised a wooden church and in this the saint was buried.
The father of the great Alfred was interred here for a time, his
remains being afterwards taken to Winchester when his son made that
city the capital of united England, though the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
asserts that the King was buried at Worcester.

[Illustration: STEYNING.]

Steyning was once known as Portus Cuthmanni and to this point the tidal
estuary of the Adur then reached. There are a number of fine old houses
in the little town, some with details which show them to date from the
fifteenth century. The gabled house in Church Street was built by
William Holland of Chichester as a Grammar School in 1614; it is known
as "Brotherhood Hall." The vicarage has many interesting details of the
sixteenth century and in the garden are two crosses of very early date,
probably Saxon.

[Illustration: GRAMMAR SCHOOL, STEYNING.]

The bygone days of Steyning seem to have been almost as quiet as its
modern history. A burning of heretics took place here in 1555; and the
troops of the Parliament took quiet possession of the town when
besieging near-by Bramber, but Steyning had not the doubtful privilege
of a castle and so its days were comparatively uneventful.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSES, STEYNING.]

The main road may be left at the north end of Steyning by a turning on
the left which rises in a mile and a half to Wiston ("Wisson") Park and
church; this is the best route for the ascent of Chanctonbury. The park
commands fine views and is in itself very beautiful; the house dates
from 1576, though several alterations have spoilt the purity of its
style. This manor was once in the hands of the de Braose family, from
whom it passed by marriage to the Shirleys, another famous family. Sir
Thomas Shirley built the present house about 1578. It was Sir Hugh
Shirley to whom Shakespeare referred in _King Henry IV_.

"Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like
Never to hold it up again. The spirits
Of Shirley, Stafford, Blount,