No part of Brighton has undergone so many changes during the last century as the Steine, which was at first the drying-ground for fishermen’s nets and the “laying-up” place for such boats as were not in use at particular fishing seasons of the year. The term Steine is of Flemish origin, and is derived from _Ein_, _Stein_, or _Steen_, a rock, as at the time when the town received its Flemish colony, the southern extremity of the valley in which Brighton lay was edged and protected from the sea by a ledge of chalk rocks, and from these the name Steine, or rocky, was given to the field or meadow, which was called the Steine Field. The word is generally, but erroneously written Steine, in conformity with the old corrupt spelling of the Normans and Normanized English in this country. “The final _e_,” says Paul Dunvan, “which our ancestors borrowed from the French language, was apposite to the genius and usage of the Saxon and Teutonic: and in the modern English language, the use of it is admissible in words of Saxon origin, only to denote the elongation of the preceding vowel, or the liquidity of the letter _g_. The obvious power, therefore, of the dipthong _ei_ makes the attendance of this Norman lackey after the Teutonic noun, Stein, or Steen, totally unnecessary.” The addition of the final _e_ is a modern innovation, as on the Court Rolls of a Court Baron, held for the Manor of Brighthelmston-Lewes, is the following entry:—“March (27 Elizabeth) it is ordered, that no hog go unringed on the Stein, where nets lie, under a penalty of eight-pence _toties quoties_.” In 1779, according to a map of that date, the only building on the east side of the Steine, was Thomas’s Library; just to the north-west of which, on the grass, was a slight erection much after the style of the judge’s stand at races. This structure was the orchestra, in which the town band, of three performers, discoursed their music under their leader, Mr. Anthony Crook, whose instrument was the trombone. The side of the hill whereon St. James’s Street, Edward Street, and the numerous streets which swell the town to the east and north-east now stand, was, “a delightful and rich tract of down, arable and pasture:” and in an old print of Brighthelmston, in 1765, reapers are represented employed in cutting and teams of oxen in carrying the crops on the ground now occupied by the Marine Parade, Grand Parade, &c. Thomas’s Library was the building now modernized and in the occupation of the Electric Telegraph Company. The Steine at that period was of much larger dimensions than at present. In Godwin’s rental mention is made of “the common pound of Brighthelston manor, together with a cottage and garden adjoining the said pound, situate on the Steine on the west side of East Street;” and in the same rental a bowling-green on the Steine is occasionally mentioned.