Roman Occupation
The Romans built villas throughout Sussex, including a villa at Brighton. At the time of its construction in the late 1st or 2nd century AD there was a stream running along what is now London Road. The villa was sited more or less at the water's edge, immediately south of Preston Park. The villa was excavated in the 1930s, prior to the building of a garage on the site. Numerous artefacts were found, as well as the foundations of the building. Locals remember that the garage owner had a small display of Roman statues and brooches on a shelf behind the till.
In Brighton museum, within the new Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society display (Autumn 2006), one can view two Roman figurines unearthed from the Brighton Roman Villa. In Stanmer Park, to the north of the city, is believed by the Society to have been a Roman temple.
A Roman road leads from Shoreham-by-Sea through Hove to Brighton, where it turns and leads north to Hassocks, a Roman industrial centre. No significant Roman settlement has been found in Brighton or Hove. However the presence of the Roman roads, the high number of Roman artefacts, and significant changes in geography (due to sedimentation and erosion) could mean that any possible settlement is either buried or may have been washed away by the sea.
Despite the Romano-British construction of numerous shore forts along the south coast (significant extant examples can be visited at Portsmouth to the West and Pevensey to the East) the battle to ward off Saxon raiders was eventually lost after the official withdrawal of Roman resources in AD 410.
Read more about this topic: History Of Brighton
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