Click the image above to enlarge the new list – as described below, and to be written by our calligrapher in due course. The heading is provisional; the final design will be agreed with the artist.
Vicars of Steyning From 1278
Our parish church has been in existence since Saxon times, and was originally served by a College of Canons, under a Provost. Afterwards the church was led by a series of vicars, originally appointed by the Abbey at Fécamp, the monastery which commissioned the Norman building. We know many of the names of subsequent clergy, and more than one list of vicars has been displayed in church over the years, one of which is held by Steyning Museum. In recent years the Friends of Steyning Parish Church has generously offered to fund the creation of a newly calligraphed list. Before this was created, we decided to check the accuracy of the lists we had inherited. Read on to find out more about that research, to reveal the identities of our ‘lost vicars’, and to see how many clergy the scrutiny committee – known informally as the ‘Star Chamber’ – has demoted.
Our work began during in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. To start with this was very difficult as every library and archive facility was closed, but we did manage after a year’s work to establish that at least eight of those shown on the old board were never vicars at all. Mostly these were other priests recorded as living in Steyning or nearby, but one of them we never managed to identify.
However, we did identify five who were not on the old board, where we could find evidence that they really had been vicars. All of these began office before William de Thame, the second vicar entered on the previous list (inducted in 1349).
Excluding people was sometimes a difficult decision, particularly in the early years. The people we excluded were:
David Chaplin, who appears first on the old list, which commenced in 1307. This seems to refer to a David Cubbel who was a chaplain and who held land at Wyckham but there is no evidence he was Vicar at Steyning.
John Wisbeke appears as Vicar in 1372 but we know that the next vicar was presented on the resignation of Wisbeke’s predecessor so he cannot have been the Vicar.
John Burway is one of three vicars listed as presented to the living in 1415 but only two weeks before the next one so we are satisfied he cannot have been inducted as a vicar.
Robert Trop is listed as presented in 1420 but the next vicar was presented only two months later and lasted for two years so we conclude that Mr Trop was not in fact inducted into the living.
Owen Hardway in 1547 was not the Vicar; he was the Chantry priest in Steyning, so listed in a national tax return, the Valor Ecclesiasticus.
John Washer is listed as being Vicar in 1614 but that’s right in the middle of another, very well authenticated Vicar’s time, that of Jonas Michael, and we have traced the reference to probate litigation – he was not our vicar; Mr Michael was.
Thomas Langridge was presented to the living (by King Charles I) in 1639 but after a lot of research we are satisfied that he never became the Vicar – Mr Leonard Stalman remained Vicar until 1643.
Charles Blacket (1678) appears as Vicar during the tenure of Mr Richard Vaughan, who regularly signed the parish register. Mr Blacket is the only excluded vicar of whom we can find no trace anywhere. Whoever he was, he was certainly not the Vicar of Steyning. It is possible someone might have confused him with a real vicar, Mr Charles Blackwell who was really the Vicar in 1657-9.
Click here to read a five-page introduction to the vicars in the historical context.
Mark Heather, Vicar
Brian Hanson, Vice Chairman of PCC
Sarah Leigh, Church Historian
September 2022
The Friends of Steyning Parish Church would like to record their thanks to the following:
Sarah Leigh, our honorary Church Historian, who led the research.
Chris Tod, former Curator at Steyning Museum, who located records we would never otherwise have found, and provided much additional advice and assistance.
Christopher Whittick, who worked as an archivist at East Sussex Record Office for 42 years and who is now a consultant at the Arundel Castle Archives.
If anyone has or would like further information about of this research, please send us an email.