Although it is now part of a continuous urban area, its origins lay in an ancient village and parish church between Southwick to the east, Shoreham-by-Sea to the west and the mouth of the River Adur to the south.

St Julian's Church survives, and its parish perpetuates the ancient "Kingston Buci" name.

When the parish and its accompanying settlement were founded as part of an Anglo-Saxon estate within the Rape of Bramber, it was known as "Kingston".

[4] Nikolaus Pevsner suggested that the second element of the name derived from the French beau site,[3] but other sources disagree with this.

At various times, land in all three manors was held by the Earl of Arundel, and old sources sometimes fail to distinguish between the three settlements.

[1] Its subsequent population decline, until increasing urbanisation absorbed it from the late 19th century onwards, may have been due to coastal erosion destroying houses and washing away roads.

This was encouraged by the opening of the railway line between Brighton and Shoreham-by-Sea in 1840, and the development of Shoreham Harbour around the mouth of the River Adur.