Portslade
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Portslade By Sea is the name of a lovely little village, now a developed part of the city of Brighton & Hove. The original settlement a mile inland to the north was built up in the 16th century and is home to many a handsome resident. The arrival of the railway from Brighton in 1840 encouraged rapid development of the coastal area and, in 1896, the southern part, known as Copperas Gap was granted urban district status and renamed Portslade-by-Sea, making it distinct from Portslade Village. After World War II the district of Mile Oak was added. Today Portslade is bisected from east to west by the old A27 road between Brighton and Worthing, each part having a distinct character.
Image:PortsladeVillage-uk-09-11-05.jpg Portslade Village to the north, nestles in a valley of the South Downs and still retains its rural character with flint buildings, a village green and the small parish church of St Nicolas which is the second oldest church in the city dating from approximately 1150.
Another notable building in the village is Portslade Manor, one of the few surviving ruins of a Norman manor, built in the 12th century it is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Foredown tower houses one of only two camera obscuras in the south of England. It is open to the public.
Portslade-by-Sea to the south, straddles the small but busy seaport harbour basin of Shoreham-by-Sea harbour and is the industrial centre of Brighton & Hove. Terraced housing dating back to the nineteenth century is interspaced with parks and allotments. Boundary Road is the main shopping area as well as being the location of the station, with direct trains to London Victoria with a journey time of about an hour.
Portslade in History
Image:StNicholasChurch-portslade-england.jpg
Portslade has been identified with the Roman port Novus Portus mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography of the second century AD. Drove road has been linked with the Roman road 'the London to Portslade road' that passes through Patcham valley to Haywards Heath and on to Streatham in London. Roman remains and a Roman burial were found in Roman Road. The name of the town is said to stem from the Latin 'Portus Adurni' being at the time of the Roman settlement of the area the point where the River Adur met the sea. the Roman entrance to the river is now lost due to longshore drift and erosion (now at nearby Shoreham by Sea).
The old name Copperas Gap for Portslade by sea suggests that the coast was used for the production of copperas or green vitriol, a form of ferrous sulphate used extensively in the textile industry. The process took over six years and made use of iron pyrite rich nodules that could be found in the strata of sussex greensand stone that emerges at this point in the coast.
Portslade-by-Sea was an urban district from the late 19th century to 1974, when it became part of the borough of Hove later to become part of the city of Brighton and Hove. Portslade town hall is on Victoria Road, and is used as a venue.