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.
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 Obscura s'' in the south of England. It is open to the public.
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 has been identified with the
Roman port 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.
