Beer Drinkers of Steyning

When writing a piece for last month’s Your Steyning we were reminded that some 100 years ago there were 11 pubs in the town. There were two in Church Street – The Norfolk Arms and The Brewers Arms; five in the High Street – The George, The Star, The Chequer, The White Horse and The Three Tuns; two in Charlton Street – The Soldier’s Return and The Plough; and two at the station – The Railway Hotel and The Railway Inn. Pubs and pub names came and went but there were never more than that at any one time.

The White Horse and the Chequer are first mentioned in the early 17th century, though the White Horse was renamed The Half Moon for a spell and The Star was once The Rose and Crown. Among the pubs which have disappeared completely are The King’s Arms (once known as The Spread Eagle) which was at the foot of Bank Passage until the 1790’s. The Crown and The Swan (which also saw life as The George and The King’s Head) were close to the old Market House which was in the middle of the High Street, near the Post Office, until 1771. Also close by were The Blue Anchor and The Golden Lion on the south side of the street between The Chequer and The White Horse. And, possibly in Church Street, there is a 1647 reference to The Three Tuns, previously called The Plough, which were nothing to do with the later pubs of that name.

Long before named pubs appear on the record “Ale Conners” were appointed each year by the Courts to check the quality and quantity of beer being sold and to bring backsliders to court. Richard Pryklove (in 1464) was fined 2d for selling beer “by the jug and not by sealed measure” and Alice Longe was fined for “brewing twice” (in 1468) – i.e. using the same malted barley that had produced the first brew to make a much weaker second brew. They were two among 50 or more beer selling and brewing infringements of this sort brought before the Steyning courts in the 1460’s and 1470’s. Clearly, for many hundreds of years, the British nation has been very serious indeed about its beer.

Centuries later the continuing importance of beer for local people was apparent in that, in the 1790’s, the Church encouraged their bell ringers with beer – up to 200 pints a year. They also provided beer for men working on the fabric of the Church. William Welling and a boy were allocated 11s 4d for “beer at ye White Horse and Chequer” – maybe as much as 150 pints worth – for 17 days work on the Church tower; this being in addition to a monetary wage.

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