Figure 3.
The Old
Market House, 72 High Street, Steyning, 2006
In August 1655, when Quakers
George Fox and Alexander Parker came to the town, they were received by
the town constable, John Blackfan, who '… Lett them have the
Liberty of the Market-house to meet in.' Blackfan himself became a
Quaker and some of his family, with other Sussex men, emigrated with
William Penn in 1682. So the first Quaker meeting in Steyning must be
imagined, not at the present market-house at 72 High Street (Fig. 3),
but in the first floor room of the earlier building that stood in the
middle of the street towards the White
Horse area of the town. A notice
fixed to the front of today's 'Old Market House' reads: 'George Fox,
Founder of the Society of Friends, (The Quakers)
Held A Meeting Here in 1655 (Sussex
Archaeological Collections Vol.
55)', the SAC reference lending credence to the statement.7
The earlier market-house had a:
… large
Upper Room and beneath was the Dungeon or
Cage, and Stocks. In the upper part of the Building was a large Clock,
the Bell of which, besides the purpose it had of giving the Hours, used
whenever Divine Service was performed at the parish Church (which
stands at a Considerable Distance from the High Street) to be Tolled by
the parish Clerk by way of Notice to the Inhabitants.8
In the eighteenth century the building was often referred to as the
'Market
House or Town Hall'. Many similar market halls still survive in country
towns all over England. Great Bedwyn's 'old town hall' in Wiltshire
gives some idea of the type that Steyning might have had, though
perhaps without a chimney, and some timber-framing may have been
visible (Fig. 4). Great Bedwyn's lock-up can be seen, and the
bell-housing is similar to the one on Steyning's later market-house
before a new clock turret was added in 1848-9 (Fig.
5).9 Titchfield Market Hall, at the Weald and
Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, can also be used as a comparison
(Fig.
6).10
The ground floor of Steyning's old market-house would have been open
for a large part of its area, with the end behind the stairs taken up
by the town gaol - often called a cage or dungeon. This was probably
boarded up to breast height, with perpendicular wooden bars above. The
stocks were also in full view of the town's inhabitants. By 1771 the
building had become a problem. It was '… in a Ruinous State
and (standing in the Middle of the principle Street [sic.]) a
Considerable obstruction and Inconvenience to the public and
Inhab[itan]ts of the
place …'11
Figure 4.
Great
Bedwyn market hall, Wiltshire, demolished 1870s.
Figure
5.
Steyning
High Street in 1840, showing the clock hanging out over the street, and
the bell-housing on the rebuilt market-house. |
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