Portswood
Portswood is a suburb and Electoral Ward of Southampton, England. The suburb lies to the north-north-east of the city centre and is bounded by (clockwise from west) Freemantle, Highfield, Swaythling, St. Denys and Bevois Valley. Portswood Ward comprises Portswood, Highfield and St. Denys, and had a population of 14,831 at the 2011 Census. It is a largely residential area adjacent to the main campus of the University of Southampton, and as such more than a quarter of residents are students. History The Manor of Portswood, which originally included the modern-day Bevois Town, Swaythling, St Denys and Highfield, was first named in a charter dating from 1045. The name Portswood comes from the Old English Porteswuda, meaning "wood of the town". The manor was granted to St. Denys Priory by Richard I in 1189, and it remained under their ownership until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536. The land, and the title Lord of the Manor, were purchased by Francis Dawtrey in 1538, and passed through several hands before being bought by Giles Stibbert in 1771. Stibbert, Lieutenant-General with the East India Company and later Commander-in-Chief of India, built the first Portswood House on the estate to the design of a Mr. Crunden. The house, which stood in the area now bounded by Spring Crescent and Lawn Road, was demolished in 1852 to make way for more housing, and the name Portswood House transferred to the nearby Portswood Lodge. The estate was gradually sold for development, and the second Portswood House was demolished in 1923, allowing the whole estate to be sold by 1928. In 1871 an attempt by the Southampton board of health to improve the local sewage system was opposed over concerns about higher taxes. Improvements were eventually begun in 1875. Governance Prior to 1894, Portswood was a tithing in the parish of South Stoneham, a parish more than ten times the size of Portswood Ward today, stretching as far as Eastleigh to the north. A parliamentary paper from 1837 indicates that the Village of Portswood consisted of about thirty houses at this time, and in the 1861 Census, the population of the entire tithing was placed at 3,546. The Local Government Act 1894 divided South Stoneham into multiple parts, and Portswood became a civil parish in its own right. The population of Portswood civil parish was 10,038 in 1891, grew to 17,958 in 1901, and had reached 22,501 by 1911. Portswood parish at that time included parts of Bitterne and was approximately 1,037 acres (1.62 square miles) by comparison with today's 690 acres (1.08 square miles). Today, Portswood is an electoral ward of the City of Southampton, and falls within the Southampton Test constituency of the UK Parliament. The ward elects three councillors to Southampton City Council. Although having never won the seat, it's the Southampton ward where the Green Party have historically polled the best, winning 38.9% of the vote in the 2022 local elections for example. Education Portswood Ward includes the main