The city's Old English Anglo-Saxon name, ‘Portesmuða’, is derived from port (a haven) and muða (the mouth of a large river or estuary) and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a warrior named Port and his two sons killed a noble Briton in Portsmouth in 501.
The names of a number of areas within the city owe their origin to the Saxons – we take a tour of the city as it is now to see how the names have changed over the years and when many of the areas which were once-villages and then became part of Portsmouth.
1. Copnor and Baffins
The Saxons settled on Portsea Island in the 6th century including one called Coppa who is believed to have owned a stretch of shoreline, in the Saxon language an ora. with the combination creating Coppan ora, with the ''n' added in place of an apostrophe. By the time the Domesday Book was published in 1086, it had changed to Copenore before being later known as Copnor. Nearby Baffins was farmland which included Baffins Pond, Baffins Farm, and Tangier Farm with those place names retained and reused for the names of the area and the roads. In the late 19th, and early 20th century the rapid expansion of Portsmouth saw the areas engulfed by the growing city. Pictured: Copnor Bridge in Copnor Road in July 1936. Photo: -
2. Hilsea
Hilsea was a small hamlet on the Portsmouth to London road with its name believed to mean 'holly island'. The boundaries of Portsmouth were not extended to encompass the hamlet until 1832. The last working farm in Portsmouth, Green Farm, was located in the area up to the 1990s - with the area's pub retaining its name. Pictured: Sunset views from the Hilsea Shore Path, next to the Mountbatten Centre taken by Alex Yorke Photo: -
3. Stamshaw and Tipner
The name Stamshaw was originally made up of two Saxon words, stam meaning post and shaw, which was an old way of spelling shore, while Tipner was Tippanora, named after a Saxon called Tippa who owned a stretch of shore - with an 'n' added to a person's name rather than an apostrophe to create Tippan ora meant Tippa’s ora. Stamshaw was farmland for centuries, although there was a magazine at Tipner in the 19th century where gunpowder was stored but it became populated as terraced housing was built during the late 19th century and early 20th century for dockyard workers and their families. Pictured: News boys standing on the road, corner of Twyford Avenue and Newcomen Road, Stamshaw in 1905. Photo: -
4. Milton
Like much of Portsmouth Milton has Saxon origins, known originally as Middletūn meaning "middle settlement" as it was a small village located between the larger village of Froddington (now known as Fratton) and Eastney. In the post-1066 Norman era, Milton was known as Middleton and it is likely that Middleton's name has been shortened by local dialects to "Milton" over centuries. In 1904, Portsmouth's boundaries were expanded to cover all of Portsea Island, with Milton becoming part of Portsmouth. Photo: Google Streetview