After Hove became a borough and expanded to incorporate land from neighbouring parishes, the highest point was approximately 590 feet (180 m) above sea level.

[5] There are no rivers in Hove, but Westbourne Gardens at the western boundary of the old parish is named after the "West Bourne", which was still visible in the 19th century but which now runs underground, and a map of 1588 shows another stream called East Brook.

Three farms—Wick, Goldstone and Long Barn—dominated the area and owned most of the land, which was of good quality: agricultural writer Arthur Young described it as "uncommonly rich".

[7] Some local shepherds supplemented their income by catching larks and northern wheatears and selling them for their meat; the latter were popular among fashionable visitors to Brighton.

Links with druids were claimed; and some 19th-century sources stated it was part of a ring of stones similar to Stonehenge, and that the others were buried in a pond at Goldstone Bottom, one of the coombes (small dry valleys) between the Downs and the sea.

Made of translucent red Baltic amber and approximately the same size as a regular china tea cup, the artefact can be seen in the Hove Museum and Art Gallery.

Also buried in the coffin in which the amber cup was found were a stone battle-axe, a whetstone and a bronze dagger whose appearance is characteristic of the Wessex culture.

It is believed to have been built c. 1540 for Richard Bel(l)ingham, twice High Sheriff of Sussex, whose initials are carved into a fireplace, and whose coat of arms adorns a period plaster ceiling.

In 1723 a traveller, the antiquary John Warburton, wrote, 'I passed through a ruinous village called Hove which the sea is daily eating up and is in a fair way of being quite deserted; but the church being quite large and a good distance from the shore may perhaps escape'.

"[24] The fertile coastal plain west of the Brighton boundary had significant deposits of brickearth and by c.1770 a brickfield had been established on the site of what would become Brunswick Square.

By 1821, the year the Prince Regent was crowned George IV, the population had risen to 312,[25] Brighton's too had trebled to 24,429 [26] with the dwellings still clustered on Hove Street, surrounded by an otherwise empty landscape of open farmland.

As part of the concerted drive by Parliament to combat smuggling, a coastguard station was opened at the southern end of Hove Street in 1831, next to The Ship Inn.

Bull-baiting took place on Saint Andrew's Day and on the Tuesday after Easter Sunday, but the practice ceased after 1810 when a bull broke free and ran through the crowd.

The bullring was between the coast road and the beach, southwest of Hove Street,[27] and the fights were promoted by the Ship Inn—which also organised cockfighting matches, even after this activity was made illegal.

[28] In the years following the Coronation of 1821 the Brunswick estate of large Regency houses with a theatre, riding schools and their own police was developed on the seafront near the boundary with Brighton.

[29] By 1831 the development of the eastern end of the parish had increased the population to 1,360 [25] but this brought few economic benefits to Hove village itself, with the historian Thomas Horsfield describing it in 1835 as 'a mean and insignificant assemblage of huts'.

St Andrew's Church was reconstructed and enlarged to its present form in 1836, to the design of the architect George Basevi (1794–1845), and features prominently in the background of paintings of the period.

The Irish nationalist leader and Home Rule MP Charles Stewart Parnell used to visit his lover, the already married Kitty O'Shea at the house she rented in 1883 in Medina Villas, Hove.

In the subsequent divorce action the cook alleged that Captain O’Shea returned home unexpectedly and Parnell beat a hasty retreat by climbing over the balcony and down a rope ladder.

The committee commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens, the architect responsible for the Cenotaph on London's Whitehall which became the focus of national remembrance services.

[38][39] At the outbreak of war, the recently completed Hove Marina leisure centre was immediately requisitioned as a training base for new officers of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and was given the title HMS King Alfred.

Also present was Sir Alexander Cadogan who related that the town hall staff had only been told to expect some government officials, with the result that the prime minister was greeted with the exclamation; "Chamberlain!

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey held land in the Rape of Lewes at the time of the Norman Conquest including the territory covered by Hove; his colours were blue and gold, represented by the chequerboard pattern in the background of the shield.

The newly separate parish of Hove was then split several times in the late 19th and 20th centuries as the population grew and more Anglican churches were built.

Founded in 1977, Hove College is a non-profit private higher education institution and offers courses accredited by OCN London.

[90] Stagecoach South operates the Coastliner 700 route through Hove, serving Brighton to the east and Shoreham-by-Sea, Worthing and Littlehampton to the west, with connections to Bognor Regis, Chichester and Portsmouth.

[91] Several National Express coaches on route 025 (Worthing–London) serve Hove each morning, calling at a stop on the A259 near the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

Local businessman A.C. Elliott became a licensed bus operator in 1879 with ten vehicles, 12 conductors and 13 drivers, running services between Hove and central Brighton.

Other operators soon started running buses in competition, and the Hove Commissioners "[kept] a tight rein on things" by issuing and renewing licences once a year.

Within 30 years passengers could choose between a wide range of vehicles, including first- and second-class cabs, hand-pulled invalid carts, goat-drawn chaises, landaus and broughams.