Tales of the Ancestral Village of Hove.

Though we may begin with a chapter on early history, it will be as well to admit to ourselves that it is not the early history of the modern town of Hove. The town as we now know it has little claim upon the interest of the historian and the antiquary, who can but sketch the story of the site upon which Hove stands.

 

No doubt some present residents claim ancestral kinship with the fishing village which gave the town its name, or may trace descent from the families which in past ages held its manors; the growth of a town seldom drives away the village stock which preceded it. But Hove, as much as any town in England, has been recruited from beyond its borders, and its own individual history does not open till late Georgian times.

Prehistoric Times

In common with its neighbours, ancient Hove had a beginning in the days when history was being written in the lasting memorials of heathen warfare and burial. On the site where, Upper Holland road now stands, a prehistoric sepulchre was opened in 1853. The builder's pick turned out a rude oak coffin, in which were found an amber cup, a bronze knife blade, a whetstone, and a stone axe, all of which are now in the Brighton Museum.

 

The Bronze Age in Britain is supposed to have begun roughly about a thousand years before the Christian era, so that Hove may boast of a, reasonable antiquity. In the hills bordering the town there are found from time to time traces of a still remoter age, at the Dyke, at Hollingbury, at Wolstonbury, where relics of the Neolithic period have frequently been brought to light.

In Roman Days

But the historical darkness of these periods is unilluminated by a single name to make the life of the stone-armed savage interesting. What he called Hove, what he called Britain even, we do not know; but from coin history, worked out by such scholars as Sir John Evans and Professor Rhys, we know that Commios was a chief in the South Down country before the Romans came to Britain, and Tincommios, one of his three sons, ruled this part of the coast when Caesar crossed from Gaul.

 

For what it is worth, Hove may take pride in the probability that when the legions landed, Hove men were in the ranks that met them. Both Hove and Aldrington no doubt dropped speedily into Roman ways, and found great use in the improvements which the Romans made to the ancient trackway that led from Aldrington to the Dyke; or perhaps some of the wealthier natives replaced their daub-and-watttle huts by dwellings built on the model of the new Roman villas that later on were erected near Blatchington and Southwick.

Some important Roman official had a station at Aldrington, it is thought; perhaps he lived in the Roman villa at Southwick, so as to be within easy reach of the port. But whether Aldrington was the Portus Adurni, or whether the galleys sailed in to Bramber as their harbour, with Aldrington as a river-mouth station, it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty. But Aldrington was no doubt a place of great importance, and it probably became even more vital as a look-out when the Saxons, Jutes, and Northmen began their descents upon the Sussex shores.

 

The Name of Hove

Hove does not figure in the annals recording the coming of these piratical immigrants, and The share of Portus Adurni must he left out of consideration. But the suggestion is forced upon us that Hove was not called Hove till their arrival. Its etymology presents difficulties, but the suggestion is made that the name has kinship with the word " Hofe," meaning the courtyard of a farm, and implies that these immigrant settlers were agriculturally-minded. No doubt they were sick enough of the sea and of soldiering. What they did and how they lived we do not know, but the agricultural village very soon added fishing to its industry.

As to the Danish period, we have the tradition that Canute brought over the ancestor of that family of Scrase which has been associated with Hove for many centuries; and we have the more definite fact, gleaned from the Doomsday Survey, that Earl Godwin held the borough-wick of 'How' before the Conquest. Elsewhere the name is spelt Hoo and Hou,and we are told that William Fitz-Bonard held the borough-wick of William de Braose (Lord of Bramber), which was included in the manor of Herst (i.e., Hurstpierpoint), in the occupation of William de Warenne, the Norman lord of Lewes. How, Hoo, Hov, and several other forms, when met with in the South of England, often imply a marshy tract.

 

In common with its neighbours, Hove no doubt took some years to recover from the waste of the Conquest. Whether or not there was church here in Saxon times we have no means of knowing, since the Doomsday mentions neither church nor priest nor glebe land. But the old parish church near Hove Street was probably built on the site of an older one in the early part of the thirteenth century by Richard Poore, Dean of Salisbury, and afterwards Bishop of Chichester, when he founded the two prebends of Hova Villa and Hova Ecclesia - the exact date being given as 1216. It is stated with some likelihood of probability that there was a religious house at Hove in connection with the latter prebend. Its site, if this be so, was at the back of Lewes Terrace, near the new public library.

 

Coast Erosion

At about this time the Pierpoint family, now extinct, but with the record of their name in Hurstpierpoint, held the manor of Hove; and already the sea had begun its havoc, which ended with the destruction of Aldrington.

The return for taxation of 1292 was made the basis of the Nonae return of 1340, a tax of the ninth lamb, the ninth fleece, the ninth sheaf. Many coast parishes explained their inability to meet the new demand as being due to the erosion of their lands by the sea, and among them Hove is found bemoaning a loss of 150 acres, valued at £5 6s. 8d.

 

Among the coast parishes a common reason for not paying was the plea that the land was left fallow, "pro dubio Normannorum " - that is to say, in view of the chances that what they sowed they would not reap, but the pirates would wantonly lay waste. Hove did not prefer this plea; with fewer acres, and an unemployed population, it had probably learned to look after itself.

 

The manor passed to the family of De la Warr through inheritance, and remained in their hands from 1370 to 1454. Then it became crown property.

 

A French Attack

When Francis I., King of France, made his feeble invasion of England in 1545, the French landed at Hove and did some slight damage. On July 18, 1545, admiral Claude d'Annebaut, with 200 ships and 26 galleys of the French navy, made his descent upon the Sussex coast. He landed, among other places, at Brighton, and an old print recording the attack shows houses burning at the coast, with the town beacon afire, and the men of Aldrington and Hove marching to the assistance of their neighbours.

 

The French admiral got little good by his attacks on Sussex; wherever he landed he was driven off, more often with greater loss than he inflicted. Two cannon balls, which may date from this attack, are preserved in the Hove Museum. The one was dug up in Hove cemetery, and the other in Langdale Gardens. Neither could have been fired from the sea.

In the reign of Mary I. of England, and during that of Henry II. of France, the two countries were again at war, the King of France having allied himself with. Scotland against England.

 

The French did not attack either Brighton or Hove during this war, and it ended in 1558 with the loss of Calais, which had been held by this country for over two hundred years.

 

Thirty years later the village seamen were probably present in the fleet which destroyed the Armada, for it drew ships and men from most of the South Coast towns and villages. Their exploits, if they performed any, must remain unsung, for history has not preserved their story.

One wonders, in reading of the escape of King Charles II. after the battle of Worcester, that Colonel Gunter did not elect to hide his master in Hove village. The Ship Inn, from the description of its appearance at that date, should have been the very house for the King's accommodation. For Hove lay away from the Old Shoreham Road, along which the pursuers would have come; the coast road was not then made, and if the village had any reputation at all it was as the haunt of smugglers. They would have been the very men to aid the Colonel in getting the king secretly conveyed to Captain Tettersell's Enterprise .

 

Moreover, the Scrase family, who then held the manor, were known to he favourable to the King's cause. But the village lay so remote that the colonel probably never thought of it, though, of course, the party passed through what is now Hove on their way from the tavern in West Street, Brighton, to Shoreham Harbour. At this time Hove was very much what Hove Street was some hundred years ago.

The church, though partly destroyed by fire, had not yet fallen to utter ruin; the village street bore the same appearance of flint-built, red-tiled farmsteads and cottages, with the Ship Inn (possessing a pit for bear-baiting), some fishermen's huts, and perhaps a house or two for the preventive men. But one searches in vain for records of Hove smugglers being brought to law, and by their statements throwing a light upon the village of their time.

 

Perhaps they were too clever to be caught, whether as " owlers " they conveyed wool out of the country, or whether as "fair traders " they imported spirits and tea free of duty. At Hove Street they had a convenient landing-place - the coastguard station marks the site to this day - and they ran their cargoes by the ancient trackway that followed the line of the present Sackville Road. Cleverly masked chalk-pits for concealing the " stuff " in time of danger gave the builders some trouble in later years.

 

If we may trust local tradition, however, the Hove men more than once fought the King's soldiers in defence of their booty, and had the best of the argument.

 

 

 

 

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