Place:Preston, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

Preston Village is now a suburban area located to the north of the centre of the unitary authority of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.

Originally a village in its own right, it was eventually absorbed into Brighton with the development of the farmland owned by the local Stanford family, officially becoming a parish of the town in 1928. Stanford-owned land to the south of Preston Manor was given to the town and now makes up Preston Park, one of the largest parks in the now conjoined city of Brighton and Hove.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"PRESTON, a village, a parish, and a hundred, in Sussex. The village stands adjacent to the London and Brighton railway, in a fine valley, 1¼ mile N N W of Brighton [railway] station; and has a post-office under Brighton. The parish comprises 1,286 acres; contains the Brighton cavalry barracks and the Brighton waterworks; and is in Steyning [registration] district.

"Real property: £4,198. Population in 1851: 906; in 1861: 1,044. Houses: 111. The property is divided among a few. There are several neat villas. A new village, suburban to Brighton, and to be called Prestonville, was in course of erection in 1868. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Hove, in the diocese of Chichester. Value: £306. Patron: the Bishop of Chichester. The church is early English, and stands on the hill-side. There are an Independent chapel and a national school."

There is no other reference to Preston being named Prestonville except in the quote above.

According to A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography) Preston was split into the parish of Preston and the parish of Preston Rural in 1894 when the latter section had only 19 houses. (Preston Rural became part of Steyning East Rural District). Preston parish gained 94 acres from Patcham parish in 1923. When Preston was abolished to become part of the parish of Brighton in 1928 it covered 999 acres. (Preston had been part of Brighton County Borough from 1854.)

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