there was roman activity and settlement in the area. the anglo-saxons gave it the name ealdhere's tun — ealdhere's farm — and the name appears in the domesday book as eldretune. during the high middle ages the fortunes of the village waned as the mouth of the river adur moved west to portslade, and as acres of land were lost to the sea. by the end of the sixteenth century its church dedicated to st leonard was a ruin, and though the population rallied for a time in the seventeenth century by the 1831 census, the area recorded a population of just two.