Steyning Sussex Family History Guide

|
Updated on
Links marked with a * mean that we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. It all helps to keep the site online and free for everyone.

Steyning is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Sussex.

Parish church: 

Parish registers begin:

  • Parish registers: 1564
  • Bishop’s Transcripts: 1591

Nonconformists include: Society of Friends/Quaker and Wesleyan Methodist.

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

STEYNING, a small town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred, in Sussex. The town stands on Stone-street, at the foot of a hill, near the Shoreham and Horsham railway, 1 mile W of the river Adur, and 4½ NNW of Shoreham; 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.

It sent two members to parliament from the time of Edward I. till disfranchised by the reform act of 1832; is a seat of petty sessions; consists chiefly of two spacious streets, much improved in their edifices; and has a post-office under Hurstpierpoint, a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, a good inn, a police station, a Norman church large and once cruciform, a Wesleyan chapel, an endowed grammar-school with £92 a year, charities £40, two breweries, an extensive parchment manufactory, a-fortnightly market on Monday, and a fair on 11 Oct.

The parish comprises 3,383 acres. Real property, £7,717. Pop. in 1851, 1,464; in 1861, 1,620. Houses, 323. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Chichester. Value, £400. Patron, the Duke of Norfolk. The workhouse is in New Shoreham.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

Historical Maps

Vision of Britain Historical Maps – includes topographic maps, boundary maps and land use maps

Administration

  • County: Sussex
  • Civil Registration District: Steyning
  • Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Episcopal Consistory) of Chichester for the Archdeaconry of Chichester
  • Diocese: Chichester
  • Rural Deanery: Storrington
  • Poor Law Union: Steyning
  • Hundred: Steyning
  • Province: Canterbury