History of Brighton

The history of Brighton is that of an ancient fishing village which emerged as a health resort in the 18th century and grew into one of the largest towns in England by the 20th century.

The etymology of the name of Brighton lies in the Old English Beorhthelmes tūn (Beorhthelm's farmstead). This name has evolved through Bristelmestune (1086), Brichtelmeston (1198), Brighthelmeston (1493), Brighthemston (1610) and Brighthelmston (1816). Brighton came into common use in the early 19th century.

The western section of the cliffs at Black Rock, near Brighton Marina are an unusual outcropping of Palaeolithic Coombe Rock, revealing in section a paleocliff cut into Cretaceous Chalk. These rocks were formerly known as the "Elephant Beds" in reference to the fossilised material recovered by geologists and palaeontologists. 200,000 years ago the beach was significantly higher and this clear strata can be observed preserved in the cliff. Protohumans (assumed to be the same species of hominid found at the Neander Valley) hunted various animals including mammoth along the shore. The preservation of this raised beach and associated evidence of a coastal paleolandscape has led to protected status for the cliff. This section can be seen directly behind the car-park of supermarket Asda.

Whitehawk Camp is an early Neolithic causewayed enclosure c. 3500 BC. The centre is some way towards the transmitter on the south side of Manor Road (which bisects the enclosure), opposite the Brighton Racecourse grandstand. Archaeological enquiry (by the Curwens in the 1930s and English Heritage in the 1990s) have determined four concentric circles of ditches and mounds, broken or "causewayed" in many places. Significant vestiges of the mounds remain and their arc can be traced by eye. The building of a new housing estate in the early 1990s over the southeastern portion of the enclosure damaged the archaeology and caused the loss of the ancient panoramic view.

The fate of a Neolithic long barrow at Waldegrave Road is recorded. It was used as hardcore during the building of Balfour Road and workmen were regularly disturbed by the concentrations of human remains poking through their foundations.

More of pre-historic Brighton and Hove can be seen just north of the small retail park on Old Shoreham Road, built in the late 1990s over the site of Brighton's football ground. Here one can visit The Goldstone. This is believed to have been ceremonial, and there are suggestions that it, together with now-vanished stones, may have formed an ancient circle. In the early 19th century a local farmer, fed up with romantic tourists, had the largest stone buried. It was exhumed in 1900.

After a scholarly review, the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity noted, "there are a concentration of Beaker burials on the fringes of the central chalklands around Brighton, and a later cluster of Early and Middle Bronze Age 'rich graves' in the same area."

An important pre-Roman site is Hollingbury Castle (or Hollingbury Hillfort). Commanding panoramic views over the city, this Celtic Iron Age encampment is circumscribed by substantial earthwork outer walls with a diameter of approximately 300 metres. It is one of numerous hillforts found across southern Britain. Cissbury Ring, roughly 10 miles (16 km) from Hollingbury, is suggested to have been the tribal "capital".