Extracts from "The Story of Shoreham" by Henry Cheal - first published in 1921

"To all those my Fellow-townsmen who fared forth to the
Greatest War known to History.
And to the memory of those Gallant Heroes who fell,
nobly fighting in the Cause of Freedom and Justice,
this story of Shoreham is dedicated"

The Neolithic (later stone age) population of Britain-a darkwhite race-are said to have come from the deserts of the east, from Arabia and Egypt, and to have followed the shores of the Mediterranean in journeying hitherward. Any attempt to fix a date for this immigration is quite hopeless. It was far back in the distant ages, but this ancient people had settlements in thus part of the country which we now call Sussex, in the coast district between the Downs and the sea and in the river valleys.

On the alluvial lowlands of the Adur estuary they grew in abundance those cereals upon which they largely depended for their daily bread. At Cissbury Hill they obtained in abundance the flints for the manufacture of their stone hatchets and other implements. With these tools shafts were sunk and the whole hillside honeycombed with tunnels in the work of excavating the copious material found in the chalk. Some of the actual tools used in these mining operations are now in the British Museum, while flint implements from Cissbury are to be seen in the Museums of Brighton and Lewes. No one can tell us the duration of this industry at Cissbury, but the large number of implements found point to long and continued operations and its occupation as a factory.Some say that it must have lasted several thousand years. It was the Sheffield of the flint industry in Neolithic times.

Another race threw up the great hill-fort and in so doing cut the imposing ditch of their citadel through the filled-in shafts of the older mines.

If you have not already visited Cissbury, do so. You may follow the track over Lancing Downs and beyond, and will tread much the same path by which the primitive yet cunning artizan made his way up from the river of " running waters " to the flint factory on the hill-top. The place cannot fail to impress you. It was once teeming with a busy industry, the evidence of which is to be found in the countless flint chips and flakes scattered broadcast over the whole hill-side. When the Romans came stone weapons had long been superseded by bronze and iron, and still to-day this monument, sublime in its solitary grandeur, remains to speak to us of a people and a period so remote from our own time, as to make the Roman invasion of Britain appear in comparison as an event of yesterday.

At the time that this flint factory was in full swing we may reasonably conclude that the coast district from the Chichester marshland to Pevensey was not consolidated under a single rule, but that there existed chieftainships over several villages, confined for the most part to single river valleys. Such a principality in the fertile valley of the Adur and the coast strip from Worthing to Brighton would roughly correspond to the modern Rape of Bramber, possessing its own boundary of forest and its own camp of refuge on the hill-top. Now the flint-workers of Cissbury knew nothing of metals ; the iron ore in the almost inaccessible Weald was of no use to them. If aware of its existence they were totally ignorant of its possibilities. Copper and tin were alike unknown to them and therefore they could not manufacture bronze.

A Stone-Age" Sheffield "

The secret of the manufacture of bronze was probably first discovered in Asia, where tin and copper were most workable, and thence spread to Europe, where it was quickly adopted by the Aryan Celts. Having learnt the use of bronze certain great improvements followed, notably amongst others an immense advance in the art of boat-building. The men of the Bronze Age soon constructed vessels which enabled them to cross the narrow seas and invade Britain. Their superior weapons gave them an enormous advantage over the natives, armed only with their polished flint hatchets, and in a very short time they over ran nearly the whole island. This great invasion is said to have taken place some 1,000 or 1,500 years before the Christian era.

Thus the people of Britain came in two great waves. First the short dark Iberian (who mined for flints at Cissbury) and then the mighty Celt who conquered him. Thence forward the two peoples existed side by side, for the Celts did not exterminate those whom they had conquered, but made slaves of them, and these slaves learned the tongue of their masters.
At the date of the first Roman invasion these two distinct types of people were to be found in Sussex-a Celtic aristocracy of Aryan type, round-headed, fair-haired and blue-eyed, together with Celticised Euskarian or half-cast serfs, the latter retaining the long skulls and dark complexion of their aboriginal ancestors.

Under the bronze-weaponed Celts a more advanced type of civilization became possible, and a more extended chieftainship resulted from the improved weapons and consequent military power, and much of Britain became amalgamated into considerable kingdoms, some of which seem to have spread over several modern shires. But while this was generally so, Sussex, enclosed by its barrier of forest, seems to have remained a single little principality of itself, held at least in later times by a tribe known to the Romans as the Regni, whose prince or king had his seat of government at Regnum (Chichester).

The Celts occupied the fertile valleys and alluvial slopes, cut down the woods by the river-sides and built their more regular camps of refuge upon the Downs for protection from the neighbouring tribes, so that we find the traces of their occupation mainly confined to the Downs and the seaward slopes.
In the polished Stone Age the district had been self-supporting because of its possession of flint. In the Bronze Age it was dependent on other places through its non-possession of copper and tin. During the former period it may have exported weapons from Cissbury ; during the latter it must certainly have imported the material of weapons from Cornwall and Gaul.

Before the Romans came iron as well as tin was found and manufactured in Britain and bronze axes had been discarded in favour of iron swords and spears. There seems to have been a considerable intercourse with the continent and among the agricultural exports were cattle and hides, wheat and barley.

A British Prince

An important personage at the period of Julius Caesar's invasion, reigning over part of Britain, was Commius. This prince appears to have had three sons: Tincommius, who was king of the Regni (practically answering to the present county of Sussex) ; Verica, whose sway was over the eastern part of the Atrebates (Berkshire and the north part of Wilts), and Eppilos, who ruled over Kent.
Tincommius was king of the Regni when Caesar came and his coins have been found at various places, both in East and West Sussex, in our own immediate neighbourhood, at Bramber and Steyning, and on Lancing Downs. Coins of Verica have been found at several places in Sussex, including Shoreham and Steyning and on Lancing Downs. By this we may infer that the Regni and the Atrebates traded one with the other and that by the time the two brothers, Tincommius and Verica, ruled over their respective principalities some sort of overland communication-probably by track-ways through the dense forests existed.

Traces of the Roman Occupation

It is only reasonable to suppose that when the Romans came they found considerable village settlements on the shores of the Adur-at Shoreham, Botolphs, Bramber, and Steyningalthough these names were then unknown. It was then less a river and more an arm of the sea, which ran inland as far as Steyning, and its great importance must very early have been appreciated by them.If the site of the Roman Portus Adurni is to be found in these waters it may have embraced the whole of this estuary. Some place the actual Roman station in the neighbourhood of Aldrington and tell us that, like the lost " Atlantis," it long since sank beneath the waves. Others favour Bramber, and some say that its site was at Shoreham-Old Shoreham. On the analogy of other Roman ports in Britain the latter would seem to be the most likely place. It was but a short distance up the fair-way, but so far from the open sea as to give complete security to the vessels of the period. The name New Shoreham sufficiently proves that the first wharfing must have been higher up the river, and although the first opportunity for fortification was at Bramber, where it is quite likely that the Roman military governor of the district had his seat, we have the analogy of every port upon the Sussex rivers of a harbour forward of the first fortification.

But there are some who tell us that we must seek elsewhere than in this neighbourhood for Portus Adurni and that the river name " Adur " was first applied to these waters by Drayton in his poem " Polyolbion " (A.D. 1612). Up to that time, they say, it was usually known as the " Sore " (as in Holinshed's Chronicle, A.D. 1577). It is referred to in documents of the reign of Henry VIII. merely as " a certain river " and has been named at various times Bramber Water, Beeding River, Alder and Shoreham River. From this evidence it is argued that no Roman soldier ever set foot within miles of the Adur Valley and no Roman galley was ever seen upon its restless waves.

Alternative names for rivers, and especially for particular reaches of rivers, are of course quite common but they do not exclude one general name. The word Adur is of Celtic origin, " Dwyr " = running or flowing waters, and sufficiently describes the river as a whole, for it is seldom at rest. We may reasonably conclude that even before the Romans came and made it their Portus Adurni it was known as the Dwyr, the running waters, " hurrying down to the live sea " as one has so aptly written of it.

We know that the Roman engineers, nearly two thousand years ago, made that great military highway from the east gate of Regnum (Chichester) to London Bridge. We call it the " Stane Street " and much of it is still in use. From this road, in the neighbourhood of Croydon, there was apparently a junction which led directly to the Adur mouth. Of this highway two short sections have been discovered and they are in direct alignment towards Shoreham. Apparently the way was across St. John's Common (Burgess Hill) to the Hassocks sand pits, where many fine specimens of Romano-British pottery and Samian ware have recently been found. These are now exhibited in the Sussex Archaeological Museum at Lewes. The road ascended the South Downs by way of the old track up the Saddlescombe side of the Devil's Dyke and made for Portslade (Portus ladus = the way to the port) and so to the Adur mouth, joining or crossing a highway which ran from east to west through the county-from Anderida (Pevensey) to Regnum (Chichester). The latter highway probably crossed the Ouse at Lewes, which has been claimed as the site of the small Roman town of Mutuantonis.

Several specimens of Romano-British Pottery now in the Brighton Museum were found during the erection of the soldiers' huts north-east of Buckingham Park.
Mention may be made of several important Roman finds in the neighbourhood. Just across the river where the Downs rise towards Lancing Clump the foundations of a Roman villa, a bath and interments, were discovered in the year 1828. Numerous coins were also turned up at the same time, and these, ranging from the date of the Emperor Claudius (A.D. 41-54) to Gallienus (A.D. 260), seem to indicate a long possession of the spot by the Romans. Only a few years ago the foundations of a Roman temple were discovered amidst the trees at Chanctonbury Ring. In the course of the excavation of these remains coins were again found and these cover a period from the reign of Nero (A.D. 54-68) to Gratian (A.D. 375-383). Roman remains have also been discovered at Botolphs. In the year 1800 about one hundred Roman urns were found on Beeding Hill, near the confines of Edburton and Old Shoreham parishes. Roman coins innumerable have been and are continually found in Shoreham. Worthing has yielded important finds of pottery and a notable incised stone now in Lewes Castle Museum. The discovery of a Roman villa at Preston (Brighton) and another at West Blatchington, near Hove, seems to suggest that the highway from east to west before mentioned ran through those places.

From the foregoing we may infer that Roman civilisation influenced this part of the country to a considerable extent. Doubtless the native population were for the most part engaged in agriculture and other useful arts and as the centuries passed they almost forgot the use of arms.

So it was that after four hundred and fifty years, when Imperial Rome was distressed by troubles nearer home and was compelled to withdraw her legions from these shores, the Britons were left without military protection and became an easy prey to their enemies. In a few years horde after horde of Saxon pirates swooped down upon the unprotected shores of Britain. Very soon their keels were swarming into the creeks and penetrating up the rivers of this county.

 

 

The Saxons

In the year A.D. 477 the Saxon warrior, Ella, and his three sons, Cymen, Wenceling, and Cissa, " came to the land of Britain " and landed at Cymensora, the modern name of which is Kynor, near West Wittering. Another and somewhat later landing is said to have been at Shoreham. Tradition tells us that one of those sanguinary but fruitless struggles between the Romanized Britons and the Saxon invaders took place on Slonk Hill, northeast of Shoreham, and that the origin of the word " slonk " is to be found in the Saxon " slaught." The term " slonk-butcher" is still used in some parts of the country. It would appear that the hill-name has therefore some connection with slaughter North-east of the Slonk is another hill known as " Thunder's Barrow," possibly derived from Thor, the God of Thunder, to whom the Saxons offered sacrifices-it may be on this hill before they accepted Christianity as their religion.

Having been successful in establishing himself in the possession of the district comprised in the modern counties of Sussex and Surrey, Ella formed his newly acquired province into a kingdom, of which he became the first king. Cissa succeeding him in the government of this province, to which the part of Hampshire bordering on Sussex was afterwards added, made Regnum his chief place of residence. From this circumstance the name of the city was, out of compliment to him, shortly afterwards changed to Cissa-ceaster, from whence it derived its present name of Chichester.

In the valley of the Adur Saxon settlements soon began to appear, most of them doubtless on the sites of earlier villages whose inhabitants had been driven out or slaughtered by the invaders. In addition to establishing themselves on the old hill-forts on the high points of the Downs we find them settling at and naming many places in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. The Saxon terminations " ham," " ing " and " ton," common in the Adur Valley, indicate the abode of Saxon communities.

After the introduction of Christianity by St. Wilfrid, the exiled Bishop of York (A.D. 680) and its spread all through the South Saxon kingdom came the building of churches. These, of course, were at first of wood, but as the centuries passed they were replaced by more worthy buildings. The work of Saxon masons may still be seen at many places in Sussex and near at hand-Old Shoreham, St. Botolphs, further up the Adur, and at Sompting.

During the eighth century a somewhat remarkable man appeared in the Adur Valley, a Saxon saint named Cuthman. As a youth, before his coming thither, he dwelt in the West Saxon Kingdom and there tended his father's sheep. It was his daily custom to perform a miracle. On the approach of mid-day the shepherd boy would describe with his crook a circle round the flock, bidding the sheep in the name of the Lord not to stray beyond it during his absence at dinner.

After his father's death Cuthman and his mother were left in great poverty and were forced to leave their home. They set forth travelling eastward but the aged mother was too infirm to journey in any other way than by means of a wheelbarrow-couch, which her dutiful son constructed for her comfort and which he partially supported by means of a cord over his shoulders.

As they were thus passing through a certain hayfield the cord broke and Cuthman replaced it with elder twigs and thereupon was greatly ridiculed by the haymakers. This ill-timed levity was at once severely punished. A heavy storm forthwith broke over the field and destroyed the crop. Ever after, says the legend, a rain-storm visited that field at haymaking time. Cuthman and his mother journeyed on and came to Steyning. Again the cord broke and, as one writer says, " let down the old lady." This second mishap was supposed by the monkish chronicler to have been a divine intimation to the saint that his journey should now end, and possibly charmed with the delightful surroundings, he decided to settle there.

In due time St. Cuthman began to erect a church, but while the work was in progress a beam shifted and much of the building collapsed. Whilst he ruefully contemplated this disaster and thought on the vast amount of labour necessary to make it good, a stranger suddenly appeared and pointed out how the damage might be speedily repaired. Cuthman and his labourers followed the advice of the stranger, who also worked with them, until at length the sacred edifice was finished and beautified.

When all was complete the saint fell at the feet of this great. artizan and asked his name. " I am He in Whose honour thou hast raised this temple," he replied, and then vanished.

In the fulness of time Cuthman, with filial piety, laid his aged mother to rest, and later was himself buried in the church which he had built. Over his bones a shrine was erected and here pilgrims from far and near paid their devotions, and many wonderful cures were claimed to have been vouchsafed to the crippled and sick. The Saint's anniversary was anciently kept at Steyyning on February 8th. In the church porch may be seen what is most probably Cuthman's grave-slab. It bears a. rude double cross in low relief and is certainly of pre-Conquest date. A second slab, probably as old, may have covered the grave of the Saint's mother.

 

 

Steyning: A Port

So great was Cuthman's influence on the fortunes of the charming little town of Steyning that for several hundred years, after his death, and certainly as late as the beginning of the 12th century, it was known as St. Cuthman's Port.
Here in the year 858 King Ethelwulph, the father of Alfred the Great, was buried, but the body was afterwards taken up and re-buried at Winchester.

King Alfred had estates at Steyning and Beeding and bequeathed them to two of his nephews. The Steyning property afterwards reverted to the Crown and Edward the Confessor granted it to the Abbey of Fecamp, but afterwards revoked the grant at the instance of Earl Godwin, whose son, King Harold, held Steyning until his death at the Battle of Hastings. The Conqueror restored the estates to the monks of Fecamp, who thereupon sent over some of their number to form a priory or cell at Steyning. In process of time the church built by St. Cuthman gave place to one of nobler proportions erected by these monks and its beautiful arcades and lofty chancel arch remain to-day, a very fine example of Norman style. The Abbot of Fecamp had remarkable privileges in Steyning, among which may be noted that of punishing felons, hanging murderers, and disposing of their property. The town was important and in those days actually had more houses than Southampton or Bath. In the days of Edward the Confessor money was minted at Steyning.

Bramber

The Saxon kings had a stronghold at Bramber and at King's Barns near at hand a farmstead. Now but a picturesque village the former place possesses nothing of its ancient importance, yet this must have been considerable. The arm of the sea running up to Steyning was here of great breadth and washed the castle mound, whereon after the Conquest William de Braose, a kinsman of the Conqueror, to whom had been granted the territory known as the Rape of Bramber, erected his feudal stronghold. The area covered by this fortress was considerable, and its grim towers frowned upon the waters of the Adur for centuries, but to-day a few ivy-clad fragments are all that remain to tell us of its former grandeur. Of the little Norman church outside the castle walls, nave and tower are all that is preserved of a former cruciform building.

To the position of this stronghold at Bramber and to the influence of its powerful lords, many of whom figure in the early annals of English History as eminent barons, statesmen, and crusaders, the town of New Shoreham owes much of its early development and prosperity. It became and remained for some centuries one of the great highways to the Continent and one of the most flourishing sea ports.

William de Braose, viewing with jealous eye the power wielded at Steyning by the Abbot of Fecamp, where he also held some lands, determined to set up a religious establishment of his own. He founded, almost beneath his castle walls but on the opposite BRAMBER side of the river and, therefore, in Beeding, a Priory to be dependent upon the Benedictine Abbey of St. Florent, near Saumur in Anjou. The foundation charter of this Priory of Beading, or Sele, as it was more generally called, was dated 1075, and therein are mentioned the churches of St. Peter " of the old bridge " (de Veteriponte), St. Peter at Sele, St. Nicholas at Bramber, and St. Nicholas, Old Shoreham, which were granted to the monks of St. Florent to enable them to establish the Priory.

The situation of " the old bridge " mentioned in the charter is a matter of much uncertainty. While some maintain that it was at Bramber, many are disposed to believe that it carried the road across the river at Botolphs and that the church of St. Peter de Veteriponte stood upon it. Some believe that it was at this point that the Roman highway from east to west crossed over, and that if " the old bridge " was not the actual Roman bridge it was its successor. The designation "old" leads to the conclusion that the bridge was ancient in 1075.

 

 

Ancient Bridges

The first mention of a bridge actually at Bramber appears in an agreement of the year 1103, between the Abbot of Fecamp and Philip de Braose. Apparently then but recently erected it proved a great hindrance to the passage of ships up to the port of St. Cuthman. It was agreed that the bridge should be altered in such a manner " that ships shall freely pass at the bridge, going up and down according to such custom and quiet as they enjoyed at the time of King Edward " (the Confessor).

Returning once more to the " old bridge." If this was in existence in 1075, and to go much further back, in Saxon timesand it is only reasonable to believe that somewhere between Shoreham and Steyning the river was crossed by a bridge during that period, otherwise why was it referred to as " old " only nine years after Edward the Confessor's death ?-if this was in existence in Saxon times, surely, like the later bridge at Bramber, it must also have offered no small impediment to shipping unless there existed some means of opening or raising part of it to let the ships pass through, and there seems little reason to doubt that such would have been the case. The " old bridge " may have been constructed wholly of timber, much in the same manner as the present Old Shoreham Bridge, or again, its piers may have been of masonry and its spans of timber. The engineers who could construct a drawbridge over the moat of a castle, you may be sure, would not be at fault in devising some means of raising part of a bridge to let ships pass through.

In the year 1220 we find a reference to two bridges. John de Braose granted to the monks of Sele, among other possessions, " both the bridges of Bramber, three vassals with their lands situated on the east side of the little bridge, and five messuages next the greater bridge of Bramber to the west."

In the year 1348, John, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, confirmed to the Prior and monks of Sele, belonging to the Abbey of St. Florent, a grant made by his ancestor, John de Braose, of the Churches of St. Peter, Sele ; St. Nicholas, Bramber ; St. Nicholas, Old Shoreham ; St. Peter de Veteriponte, and St. Mary, Shoreham. tithes in various parishes and " all the grantor's bridges, etc., of Bramber, and timber for repairing the bridges." Also mills and fisheries in Bramber Water, five houses at the Port of Shoreham, and the third part of markets held in that town. The limits of the fisheries in the Water of Bramber are defined in the deed as " from the Church of Old Shoreham to a place called Bedenye."

Three years later Bishop Praty of Chichester held an enquiry into certain charges against the Prior of Sele. This took place in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, " upon the bridge at Bramber."

In 1468 John Arundel, Bishop of Chichester, granted an Indulgence of forty days to all persons in his Diocese who contributed to the repair of Bramber Bridge and the causeway of the common road " leading from Bramber towards the eastern parts of England, and from the east to the west, which are now in so bad a condition that they cannot easily be repaired without the alms of the faithful."

Five years after this a charge was brought against Prior Alleyne of Sele that, through his neglect, " the chapel of St. Mary, belonging to the Priory (of Sele) on a certain great bridge of stone in the highway between Bramber and Sele, is, with the bridge, falling to ruin and cannot be sufficiently repaired for forty pounds," a considerable sum in those days.

Four years later, when the Priory of Sele and all its property had been surrendered to Magdalene College, Oxford, there was an agreement between Bishop Waynflete, the founder of the College, and John Cowper of Winchester, mason. The latter was to " stapul and hew " one hundred loads of stone at a quarry in the Isle of Wight, and therewith repair the pillars of Bramber Bridge in Sussex, for which work the Bishop was to pay £19 and provide the carriage of stone and lime and sand, and timber for the scaffolds. As much of the old stone as possible was to be re-used and if more than one hundred loads of new stone was required, then the Bishop was to pay 3s. 4d. for each additional load. It would appear that these repairs were duly carried out, as in January, 1479-80, John Cowper acknowledged the receipt of certain moneys for work already done on the " peris, ventis, arches and wallis " of the bridge, and there was a further agreement to " stapul and hew " sufficient stone for the further repair of the bridge, paid for " at a quarry in the county of Sussex and at a quarry in the Isle of Wight." These repairs were to be fully completed before the following Michaelmas and John Cowper was to receive in payment twenty marks " and a gown !" This " great bridge of stone " is known to have consisted of several arches, and its foundations were discovered many years ago in making up the causeway which leads from Bramber to the insignificant modern Beeding Bridge, which is now sufficient to carry the road over the river at this point.

 

 

The Middle Ages

THE TOWN AND HARBOUR IN THE MIDDLE AGES-CHANGES IN COASTLINE-THE ORIGIN OF NEW SHOREHAM-HAVOC WROUGHT BY THE SEA--SITUATION OF THE MEDIAEVAL HARBOUR-DECLINE OF THE TOWN-EXCUSED FROM TAXATION-REVIVAL OF ITS INDUSTRY-OLD ROADS INTO THE TOWN.

Documents of early date present several variants of the name of our town. Domesday Book (1086) gives Soresham and later we find Soreham, Scoreham, Schorham, Sorham, Shoram and Shorham, but not until late in the 13th century is either " Old " or " New " used as a prefix to distinguish the one place from the other.

In an Assize Roll of 1263 the situation of certain property is described as in " Great Schorham " and a few years later there is a reference to a messuage in "parva Schorham " (Little Schorham). These terms doubtless refer to acreage and not to the relative importance of the two places. The area of New Shorehameven at that time a considerable town-was decidedly " little " in comparison with that of Old Shoreham, of which, indeed, it was formerly part. In the 7th year of Edward I. and again in the 15th of Edward II. we find the more ancient place described as " Eldesorham."

* Old Shoreham Parish has an area of 1,923 acres, but Now Shoreham has only 135 acres.
(" Victoria History of Sussex.")

The new town usually appears as " Nova Shorham," but we find it written "Neushorham " for the first time in an Assize Roll dated 16th Edward I. (1288).
In 1324 Roger de Stratton was summoned by writ to answer the charge of having unjustly disseised Isabel, daughter of Walter Randolph of Horsham, of her free tenement " in Shorham." Roger de Stratton appeared and actually contended that " the writ need not be responded to, because." said he," the tenement named is in New Shorham and there is no town in this county called Shorham without an adjunct." The same individual, with a desire for accuracy of spelling not usually associated with those early times, says that " he is called Roger de Stretton and not de Stratton as it is put in the writ."

The jurors in the above case said on oath that the tenement in question was in New Shorham, " there being in the county towns called Old and New Shorham and no town called Shorham without one or other of these adjuncts." They also declared that Isabel was seised of the said tenement until Roger unjustly disseised her, to her damage 40 shillings.

While the obverse of the ancient borough seal informs us that the town is " Nova Shorham Brewes " (New Shorham, Braose) a free translation of the legend on the reverse tells us that " this sign of a hulk is worthy of my name, for I am called Hulkesmouth." And so it appears in a deed of 1302 relating to the ferry "across the water of Hulkesmouth with appurtenances in New Shorham," and again in 1457, when John Wody and Robert Oxenbrigge, executors of the will of Richard Wakehurst, and the Prior and Convent of Lewes answer for the profits of 60 acres of land "in the port of Hulkesmouth alias Shorham.". The maps showing the outline of the coast and the plan showing the probable arrangement of the town itself during the Middle Ages should perhaps be accompanied by a few words of explanation. At first sight it may appear that there can be very little data to go upon in attempting to re-construct the mediaeval town or in forming an idea of the coast outline in that far-off time. 'More closely considered, however, certain documentary evidence, combined with existing appearances, seems likely to enable us to form conjectures which may not be far from the truth.

With reference to the maps showing the coast-line. It will be noticed that two lines are drawn through and cross each other in the churchyard of New Shoreham ; one runs north and south, the other west and east, and the latter continues slightly south of Kingston Church.

These are intended as datum lines from which the amount of coast alteration may be estimated, being drawn in identically the same places on all the maps. It is not contended, of course, that these maps show all the fluctuations that have taken place, nor do they exhaust the number of different river-mouths that have been formed from time to time. Indeed, almost every few hundred yards between Shoreham and Portslade seems to have provided the site for a mouth at one time or another,and once more at least (in 1760) the river again found its way straight out to sea at Shoreham for a while. The most easterly mouth ever formed seems to have been very nearly three-quarters of the entire distance east from old Aldrington Church to old Hove Church.

The earlier maps of this series are founded on documentary and inferential evidence. The 16th century one is based on the Armada map of that period, while the later ones are based on 17th and 18th century maps, one of the former being a very rare map in the Admiralty Library.