Hove

Hove is a town on the south coast of England, immediately to the west of its larger neighbour Brighton, with which it forms the unitary authority Brighton and Hove. It forms a single conurbation together with Brighton and some smaller towns and villages running along the coast. As part of local government reform Brighton and Hove were merged to form the borough of Brighton and Hove in 1997. In 2000 the conjoined towns officially attained city status.

Hove is bordered by Brighton on the east and Portslade-by-Sea on the west.

Pre-Roman evidence
During mid 19th-century building work near Palmeira Square, workmen levelled a substantial burial mound. A prominent feature of the landscape since 1200 BC, this 20 ft-high tumulus yielded – among other treasures – the Hove amber cup. 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.

Second millennium AD
Hangleton Manor is a well-preserved 16th-century flint manor building. 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. The Manor is currently serving as a pub-restaurant and is surrounded by the 20th-century Hangleton housing estate.

Regency and Victorian developments
Hove is an ancient settlement, with the parish church, St Andrew's Church, being established in the 12th century. Hove remained insignificant for centuries, consisting of just a single street, Hove Street, and by the 16th century the church was recorded as being in ruins. The census of 1801 recorded only 101 residents, but despite this tiny population The Ship Inn had been built around 1702, at the seaward end of the street.

By 1821, the year George IV was crowned, Hove was still a small village but the population had risen to 312. The dwellings were still clustered on either side of Hove Street, and were surrounded by open farmland. This isolated location was ideal for smuggling and there was considerable illicit activity. Hove smugglers became notorious, with contraband often being stored in the now partially repaired St.Andrew's Church. Tradition has it that The Ship Inn was a favourite rendezvous for the smugglers, and in 1794 soldiers were billeted there. In 1818 there was a pitched battle on Hove beach between revenue men and smugglers, from which the latter emerged as the victors. 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.

Also at the bottom of Hove Street was the bull-ring. At a bull-bait in 1810 the bull escaped, scattering spectators before being recaptured and dragged back to the ring. This was the last bull-bait to take place in Hove.

In the years following the Coronation of 1821 the Brunswick estate of large Regency houses was developed on the seafront at the eastern end of the parish, near the boundary with Brighton. The name Hove had little prestige, and although technically within the parish the residents of these elegant houses called it Brighton instead, feeling little connection with the impoverished village one mile distant to the west. Little more than half that distance to the east was the centre of Brighton, to which the Brunswick estate was loosely connected by the straggling development reaching towards it along the coast. Brighton, had become a fashionable resort with the influence of George IV who famously commissioned the Royal Pavilion. The Brunswick estate originally boasted its own police, riding schools, and a theatre.

The steady rise in population brought few economic benefits however, with the historian Thomas Horsfield describing Hove village as 'a mean and insignificant assemblage of huts' in 1835.

That same year, the Brighton and Hove General Gas Company built a gasworks on a two acre site in the fields adjoining St. Andrew's Church. Producing gas from the reduction of coal to coke was notorious for the smell it produced and this industrial site with its two modest gasometers was a considerable intrusion. Until about 1840 several paintings of this otherwise rural landscape steadfastly omit the new feature. Situated in Hove it avoided the duty of £1 per 8 tons levied on coal by the Brighton Town Act of 1773. A gasworks built east of Brighton in 1819, and therefore also exempt, was supplied by sailing brigs grounding at high tide, the crew tipping the coal down chutes into horse-drawn carts then refloating on the next tide. This method, with inevitable dust and dirt from the considerable tonnage of coal being supplied, was probably used at Hove as well until the arrival of the railway in 1840. By 1861 the site had doubled in size and there were now five gasometers, ranging in size from small to large.

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 the paintings referred to above.

Two further large estates were developed between Hove village and Brunswick, and both avoided using the name Hove: Cliftonville was designed, laid out and initially developed under Frederick Banister from the late 1840s; and West Brighton Estate in the 1870s.

West of Brunswick, the seafront forms the end of a series of avenues, named in numerical order beginning with First Avenue, which are mostly composed of fine Victorian villas built as yet another well-integrated housing scheme (West Brighton Estate) featuring mews for artisans and service buildings. Grand Avenue, The Drive, and the surrounding avenues were developed through the 1870s and 1880s, with many of the buildings in this area constructed by William Willett.

Hove's wide boulevards contrast with the bustle of Brighton, although many of the grand Regency and Victorian mansions have been converted into flats. Marlborough Court was once the residence of the Duchess of Marlborough, aunt of Winston Churchill. 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.

The Hove Club, a private members' club located at 28 Fourth Avenue, was founded in 1882.

Modern era
Much 1950s housing redevelopment in Hove took place on the outskirts of west Hove, Hangleton and the Knoll estate. This was mostly in the form of terraced and semi-detached council housing.

Hove's seafront and beach, particularly the area starting on the west side of Brighton's West Pier up to the Hove Lagoon (actually the first 300 metres are in Brighton) have recently become fashionable after some years of decline during the 20th Century.

Commercial
The town centre received substantial renovation in the late 1990s when the popular George Street was pedestrianised. These small shops have recently been joined by the centre's first large supermarket (a Tesco), built on the site of a former gasometer in what has traditionally been an area populated by small locally-owned businesses and smaller branches of national chains. Some concern about the development and its impact was expressed by residents, the local newspaper The Argus, and small locally-owned shops.

Companies based in Hove include Palmer and Harvey, the UK's largest distributor of snack foods and owner of the UK Mace convenience store brand.



Transport
Hove has a comprehensive public transport system including buses to all districts, a bus monitoring system accessible via the internet and with displays at some bus stops (a system integrated with Brighton), and taxis which are able to pick up across the city of Brighton and Hove.

Hove has two railway stations. Hove railway station has direct access to the Brighton main line to London via a loop eliminating the need to go through Brighton. Hove is on the West Coastway Line, as is the much smaller halt at Aldrington. A 'halt' stop at Holland Road, between Hove and Brighton, was in operation from 1905 to 1956. Direct train journeys to London take just over an hour, and to Brighton, a few minutes.

Branching off close to Aldrington was formerly a branch line to Devil's Dyke which closed in 1938. The route of the line may be followed along a path alongside West Hove golf club; the path leads all the way to Devil's Dyke, and railway sleepers once used under the tracks may be seen to either side of the path, plus the remains of two of the stations still exist in places but are on private land.

Hove Museum and Art Gallery
Hove Museum and Art Gallery houses a permanent collection of toys, contemporary crafts, fine art and local history artefacts, as well as holding temporary exhibitions of contemporary crafts.

Education
Hove is home to a number of schools, and three major places of secondary education: Cardinal Newman Catholic School, Hove Park Secondary School and Language College and Blatchington Mill Drama and Arts Secondary School.

Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC), formerly Brighton, Hove & Sussex Grammar School, is a dedicated place of further education, along with the Connaught Centre, Hove Park Sixth Form Centre and Blatchington Mill Sixth Form College. It has around 7 primary schools: West Blatchington Primary and Nursery School, St. Andrew's C.E. School, West Hove Junior School, Benfield Junior School, Goldstone Primary School, Hangleton Junior School, Cottesmore St Mary's Catholic School, Mile Oak Primary School, Sommerhill Junior School as well as Aldrington C.E. School

Hove is a home for several schools for foreign students of the English language.

Hove also has a primary school in the suburb of Hangleton being West Blatchington Middle and Infant Schools.

Sport and leisure
The home of Sussex County Cricket Club is at County Cricket Ground, Hove. It is used for county, national and international matches, music concerts, fireworks displays, and has found resurgent popularity with the introduction of Twenty20.

Until 1997 Hove was home to the Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.'s Goldstone Ground. In September 2007, planning permission was confirmed for the club's new ground, at Falmer, still within the city limits but on the Brighton side. The new stadium started development in late 2008, with the first game being played in August 2011.

Brighton & Hove Hockey Club is a large hockey club and their home ground is based in Hove.

There are a number of parks in Hove including Hove Park and St. Anne's Well Gardens. The King Alfred Centre which is currently a leisure centre with swimming pool and a couple of gyms on the seafront. In March 2007 Brighton and Hove City Council gave planning permission for a £290 million pound development on the site. It has been designed by the renowned Canadian architect Frank Gehry who also designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao. This project was scrapped in January 2009 when the developer pulled out.

The Monarch's Way long-distance footpath threads south-eastwards across the town from the Downs, before heading west along the seafront towards its terminus at Shoreham-by-Sea.

The Hove Lagoon Model Yacht Club was formed in 1929 and still very actively sailing model yachts on the Lagoon today. There is also sailing and windsurfing on the Lagoon.

Hove, actually
A well known reply by residents of Hove, usually humorous, when asked if they live in Brighton is "Hove, actually" thus maintaining a distinction with their less genteel neighbour. One source has identified the locally resident actor Laurence Olivier (who lived in Brighton, actually) as the origin of the phrase. In the 1990s the Hove borough council used the slogan "Hove, Actually" to promote the town for tourism.

Climate
Climate in this area has mild dfferences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).