Window & Exterior Cleaning in Steyning

Steyning's High Street and Church Street hold over 125 listed buildings between them, a remarkable concentration for a town this size — Wealden timber-framed houses from the late medieval period standing next to Georgian townhouses added when the town saw a second wave of prosperity in the 18th century. Jettied upper storeys, exposed timber framing, and old leaded or sash glazing are common on the older properties, and none of it responds well to a pressure washer. Water forced at high pressure can work into old timber joints, loosen jetties, or strip lime render that's meant to let a building breathe. It's exactly the kind of building stock that calls for purified water and a soft brush on a water-fed pole instead — gentle enough for a 15th-century frame, still effective enough for a modern render.

Steyning's position at the foot of the Downs, on ground that was once a tidal estuary before the Adur silted up, means the town still sits low and a little enclosed compared with more open downland villages. That can mean more shade, more damp, and faster moss and algae growth on north-facing walls and rooflines than a more exposed, sun-facing property would see. The wooded slopes rising up towards the Downs behind the town also mean a steady drop of leaves and organic debris onto gutters and roof valleys through autumn, especially on properties backing onto the green spaces that separate Steyning from the escarpment above.

Not every property in Steyning is medieval. The southern end of the High Street filled in with grander Georgian townhouses when Steyning became a stop on the Brighton to London coach route in the 18th century, and the town has grown further since with more recent housing on its outskirts. Georgian sash windows bring their own care needs — tall, multi-paned and often original — while newer homes need the same safe, ground-based reach that a water-fed pole system provides, regardless of the era of the building behind the glass.

Steyning Conservation Area covers the historic core in full — the High Street, Church Street and the network of lanes around them — a formal recognition of how much of the town's medieval and Georgian fabric has survived. That status doesn't change the method we use, but it's a good illustration of why the method matters: purified water and a soft brush keep buildings like these looking properly cared for without putting the timber framing, lime render or old glazing that earned the area its protection at any unnecessary risk.

In the early Middle Ages, Steyning was a genuine trading power — a river port on the then-navigable estuary of the Adur, shipping out wool from the surrounding downland farms. That prosperity didn't last: the river gradually silted up, the Black Death took its toll, and competition from other, better-placed ports drew trade away. Paradoxically, that slow decline is part of why Steyning looks the way it does today — without the pressure to redevelop that a continuously booming town would have faced, much of its medieval and Tudor building stock simply stayed standing.

The Normans left their mark here too. Steyning's substantial parish church dates from the Norman period, and the ruins of Bramber Castle sit just to the east in the neighbouring village of Bramber, a reminder of how important this stretch of the Adur valley once was. By the 18th century the town had found a new role, as a stop on the coach route between Brighton and London, which is when many of the grander Georgian townhouses at the southern end of the High Street were built.

Church Street is one of the most complete historic streetscapes in the town, its buildings packed tightly together with barely a gap between them. The most striking is the Grade I listed entrance to Steyning Grammar School — a 15th-century timber-framed building originally built as the Brotherhood Hall for the Fraternity of the Holy Trinity, with a school established on the site in 1614. The two jettied wings either side of the brick entrance date from the mid-1400s, restored in the early 1980s after the weight of 19th-century tile-hanging had begun to threaten the original timber jetties.

Steyning still functions as a proper working town rather than a heritage set-piece — the High Street has a post office, banks and a run of independent shops including a bookshop, a couple of butchers, a fishmonger and a greengrocer. It sits directly on the A283 between Storrington and the coast, with the wooded slopes of the South Downs rising immediately behind the town and Chanctonbury Ring a well-known landmark on the ridge above.