Hangleton

Hangleton is a residential suburb and unparished area of Brighton and Hove, in the ceremonial county of East Sussex, England. The area was developed in the 1930s after it was incorporated into the borough of Hove, but has ancient origins: its parish church was founded in the 11th century and retains 12th-century fabric, and the medieval manor house is Hove's oldest secular building. The village became depopulated in the medieval era and the church fell into ruins, and the population in the isolated hilltop parish only reached 100 in the early 20th century; but rapid 20th-century development resulted in more than 6,000 people living in Hangleton in 1951 and over 9,000 in 1961. By 2013 the population exceeded 14,000. The church and manor house (now a pub) are now surrounded by modern development. Following the parish's incorporation into the Borough of Hove in 1928, a mixture of council housing and lower-density private houses were built between the 1930s and the 1950s, along with facilities such as shopping parades, schools and more churches and pubs. Regular bus links were developed to other parts of Hove and Brighton, but a short-lived railway ran through the area had closed by the time residential development got underway. The spelling of Hangleton has varied over the centuries: ten variants were recorded between the time of the Domesday survey (Hangetone or Hangeton) and the 17th century. The meaning of the name is not known for certain, but most sources suggest an Old English phrase meaning "the farm by the sloping wood". The present Hangleton Lane is an ancient trackway used since prehistoric times. It was also used by the Romans as part of their route from London to their port at the River Adur in present-day Southwick. A small village gradually developed around a bend on this trackway, close to the church and original manor house. The rest of the parish—rectangular in size, longer from north to south and covering —was downland forming part of the South Downs; Round Hill, around which the track ran and which has traces of ancient field systems, rises to .