The last time I came into Steyning was by way of the bostel down Steyning Round Hill.

The old place seems more than ever medieval as one descends upon it from the height (the best way to approach a town); and sitting among the wild thyme on the turf I tried to reconstruct in imagination the scene a thousand years ago, with the sea flowing over the meadows of the Adur valley, and the masts of ships clustered beyond Steyning church.

Once one had the old prospect well in the mind's eye, the landscape became curiously in need of water.
[Illustration: _Bramber._] [Sidenote: BRAMBER] After rain, Bramber is a pleasant village, but when the dust flies it is good neither for man nor beast.

All that remains of the castle is crumbling battlement and a wall of the keep, survivals of the renovation of the old Saxon stronghold by William de Braose, the friend of the Conqueror and the Sussex founder of the Duke of Norfolk's family.

Picnic parties now frolic among the ruins, and enterprising boys explore the rank overgrowth in the moat below.
The castle played no part in history, its demolition being due probably to gunpowder pacifically fired with a view to obtaining building materials.