Jennings'
certificate of inertia.

[Sidenote: STEYNING HARBOUR]

Steyning, if still disposed to stand on its defence, might plead
external influence, beyond the control of man, as an excuse for some of
its interesting placidity. For this curiously inland town was once a
port. In Saxon times (when Steyning was more important than Birmingham),
the Adur was practically an estuary of the sea, and ships came into
Steyning Harbour, or St. Cuthman's Port, as it was otherwise called.
There is notoriously no such quiet spot as a dry harbour town. In those
days, Steyning also had a mint.

Bramber, a little roadside village less than a mile south-east of
Steyning, also a mere relic of its great days, was once practically on
the coast, for the arm of the sea which narrowed down at Steyning was
here of great breadth, and washed the sides of the castle mound. The
last time I came into Steyning was by way of the bostel down Steyning
Round Hill. The old place seems more than ever medieval as one descends
upon it from the height (the best way to approach a town); and sitting
among the wild thyme on the turf I tried to reconstruct in imagination
the scene a thousand years ago, with the sea flowing over the meadows of
the Adur valley, and the masts of ships clustered beyond Steyning
church. Once one had the old prospect well in the mind's eye, the
landscape became curiously in need of water.

[Illustration: _Bramber._]

[Sidenote: BRAMBER]

After rain, Bramber is a pleasant village, but when the dust flies it is
good neither for man nor beast. All that remains of the castle is
crumbling battlement and a wall of the keep, survivals of the renovation
of the old Saxon stronghold by William de Braose, the friend of the
Conqueror and the Sussex founder of the Duke of Norfolk's family. Picnic
parties now frolic among the ruins, and enterprising boys explore the
rank overgrowth in the moat below.

The castle played no part in history, its demolition being due probably
to gunpowder pacifically fired with a view to obtaining building
materials. But during the Civil War the village was the scene of an
encounter between Royalists and Roundheads. A letter from John Coulton
to Samuel Jeake of Rye, dated January 8, 1643-4, thus describes the
event:--"The enemy attempted Bramber bridge, but our brave Carleton and
Evernden with his Dragoons and our Coll.'s horse welcomed them with
drakes and musketts, sending some 8 or 9 men to hell (I feare) a