After some years his father died, and the widow was reduced to great poverty. Cuthman ministered to her with the tenderest care and filial devotion, and worked for their joint subsistence. When the poor woman fell sick, he was unable to leave her, at the same time he was so destitute that, unless he went forth to work or beg, they must starve. He, therefore, contrived a wooden truck or barrow on two wheels, and laid his mother on it, and went behind, thrusting her on with his hands, and supporting her by a rope slung round his neck, and begged from door to door, as her condition incapacitated him from working. One day, as he was thus thrusting his little cart through a field where the hay-makers were mowing the grass, the rope broke, and the holy youth stood a while hesitating what to do. Then he tore from an elder tree a bough, and twisted it, and attached it to his mother's cart, and supported it therewith. But the mowers laughed at him as a fool for endeavouring to supply the place of a rope with hollow elder wood. Their mockery was, however, soon arrested by a pelting rain, which drove them from their work, and by seeing the bough hold as firmly as a rope.
And when Cuthman saw that God assisted and avenged him, he vowed to build a church to his holy Name. But how to do so he knew not. So he continued his wanderings, ever journeying East way, and thrusting his mother before him, till he came to Steyning, in Sussex, where the rope suddenly broke, and his mother was much shaken, but, mercifully, was not injured. Then he thought that this was to be the place of his rest, and he said, "O Lord, on me has fallen to undertake the work of building Thee a house; for to do this thou didst inspire me with the will. Whither shall I fly from Thy Spirit? This is the place where I shall finish my wanderings, this shall be my habitation, in which I shall offer and pay Thee my vows, day by day. Almighty Father, who hast brought my journey to an end, bless my work of building to thee a temple. Thou knowest how poor I am, and a labourer from my youth, and of myself I can do nothing, unless thou dost succour me."
The place was still and solitary, trees surrounded it, and hard by flowed the tidal river Adur. The land was little populated; here and there only a farm, buried in a nook of the great chalk downs. He chose a spot at the foot of these downs, and there he built a hut and laid his poor mother in it, and at once began to measure out the ground for his proposed church. He found favour with the people round about, and they contributed to his sustenance and the support of his mother, as they watched him single-handed dig the foundations, cut the timber, and rear the walls of the church he had vowed to God. He was given two oxen to help him in his work of carrying stones. Now, one day, these oxen strayed into the field of a woman who had two grown up sons. The young men at once seized on the oxen, and took them into their house. Cuthman went after the oxen, and when he could not find them, asked the young men for them, but they refused to surrender them. Then he said angrily, "I need them not to do my own work, but to labour for God. See I have laded my cart with those logs, and must move them to the house of God. Come then you and draw them." And he grasped the youths, and yoked them to the wain, and made them drag the stones to their destination.