Origins of the name

The name Rottingdean means ‘valley of Rota’s people’. At the time of the Domesday Book the village had between 50 and 100 inhabitants.

Rottingdean was raided by the French in 1377, and the church was burnt to the ground. The village boomed during the nineteenth century. Its population increased fourfold to nearly 2000 at the beginning of this century.

It was a favourite haunt of writers and artists, and was briefly connected to Brighton by a railway car that ran on stilts above the waves – an invention of local-inventor, Magnus Volk. In 1928 Rottingdean was incorporated into Brighton in the borough boundary changes.