That the place was of some sort of importance would seem to be evident, for we find Edward the Confessor, granting the manor and churches of Steyning to the Benedictines of Fecamp, Harold taking it from them, and the Conqueror restoring it.  Two churches at Steyning are spoken of in the Domesday Survey, and it has been thought that the second of these is really that at Warminghurst.  But we find a church in Steyning in the thirteenth century served by secular canons.  This was, however, in all probability the church of St Andrew we know, which in 1290 was a royal free chapel answerable neither to the Archbishop nor to the Bishop of Chichester, but to the Abbot of Fecamp only.  The College of Canons had by then, if indeed it ever served this church, been dissolved.  At the suppression of the alien priories in the fifteenth century Steyning passed to the new Abbey of Sion.

There can be no doubt that the church we have at Steyning is due to the Benedictines of Fecamp, and it is one of the noblest buildings in the county.  Of the earlier church they built here much would seem to remain, the rudely carved arches at the eastern end of the aisles, the Norman window on the north, and much of the aisle walls.  This church was probably cruciform and may have been larger than that we now see.  It was rebuilt again by the monks in the middle of the twelfth century, when the great chancel arch we have, the beautiful nave arcades and clerestory were built, with the fine mouldings and capitals and dog-tooth ornament.  The font, too, would seem to be of about this time.  The tower only dates from the sixteenth century, and the chancel is modern.

Now Steyning lies under Chanctonbury, but I resisted the temptation to spend the afternoon in the old camp there looking over the “blue goodness of the weald,” for I wished especially to visit the church of Wiston, and to see, if I might, Wiston House, which Sir Thomas Shirley built about 1576, and where those three brothers were born who astonished not only Sussex and all England, but Rome itself and the Pope by their marvellous daring and adventures.

The old manor house is delightfully situated in its beautiful park under the dark height of Chanctonbury, and though much altered, retains on the whole its fine Elizabethan character.  The manor originally belonged to the De Braose, from whom it passed by marriage to the Shirleys.  In the church, a small Decorated building, there is a fine brass of 1426 to Sir John de Braose, on which over and over again we read Jesu Mercy:  this in the south chapel.  His little son is buried under an arch on the north, where there is a curious effigy of him.  The first Shirley, whose monument we find here, though only in part, is that of Sir Richard, who died in 1540; but it was Sir Thomas, who also has his monument, that built Wiston and was the father of those three remarkable sons.  He was the great-grandson of Ralph Shirley of Wiston, and the son of William Shirley, who died