High Street – North
You are now at the junction with the High Street, a very dangerous corner so watch the traffic as you cross the road to return up the High Street on the left hand side. The corner building was once the George Inn, named after the Hanoverian monarch, but is now a residence. Steyning once had fourteen public houses but now only four remain. Closure of the railway accounted for two and probably competition closed the two very small ale houses in Charlton Street. Perhaps customers at the George had to limit consumption at this dangerous corner and caused a loss of trade!
At this corner look left up the Horsham Road and the fine building a little way up on the right is Penn’s House. This was for many years the Quakers Meeting House and in 1678 William Penn, the Quaker who founded the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S.A. and who then lived in the nearby village of Warminghurst, came to preach here. The land below Penn’s House was once the local gas works but has now been developed with sheltered accommodation.
Just beyond is a delightful pair of flint cottages, Nos. 134 and 136 and here, in about 1910, William Evans had a bakery business until he built the new shop opposite on the corner of Sir George’s Place which still survives as a baker’s shop called Model Bakery with its delicious mornng aroma of freshly baked bread.
Now comes the Star Inn, one of the surviving public houses and which has been in business for very many years. It appears to occupy the same site as the ‘Roase and Crowne’ shown on the 1639 Henrie Bigg map.
If you look over the fence between the next cottages you will see the course of the old mill stream which still flows to join up with the River Adur and though now partly in culvert, it used to serve another water mill at Gatewick near the church. Mill House No. 126, got its name when the tenancy came under the owner of Court Mill.
Carry on as far as Tanyard Lane where you cross the High Street and turn right to walk up the twitten (public footpath) alongside the timbered houses.
Once you have walked to the top of the twitten which will take you to Charlton Street press Next.