Extract from the Anglo Saxon Chronicles 477AD
Original :- Her cuom Ælle on Bretenlond ⁊ his .iii. suna, Cymen ⁊ Wlenca ⁊
Cissa, mid .iii. scipum on þa stowe þe is nemned Cymenesora, ⁊ þær ofslogon
monige Wealas ⁊ sume on fleame bedrifon on þone wudu þe is genemned
Andredesleage.
Translation :- In 477AD Aelle came to Britain with his three sons Cymen, Wlenca and Cissa with three ships landing at
the place called Cymensora. There he killed many Welsh and drove some in flight into the forest of Andredsweald.
Cymensora has never been officially identified anywhere in Sussex, Hampshire or The Isle of White, but we believe that
Cymensora(Cymens shore) was settled and as it is in a valley on the coast would have been called Cymensora ham
(ham appears to be a settlement in a valley or with access to home [hjem]) which could then be
shortened to Soraham by removing Cymen finally to Shoreham.
If he landed at Shoreham and killed the Welsh(this meant foreigners to the Saxons) and drove them into Andredsweald
it would seem likely that the Welsh escaped using the Roman Road to Portslade, then again on an old Roman road up through
present day Pyecombe and Hassocks and into the Weald heading towards London, or more likely that they escaped up the Roman
Road to Hassocks then west along the Roman Road through Pulborough and thence to Chichester the main center in Sussex during
Roman times.
On the other side of the River Adur is Lancing which appears to be derived from "Wlanca ing" which translates
to "the fort built by Wlanca", this would appear to confirm that Aelle landed at Shoreham pushed the Welsh to the East,
and set up a bridgehead fort on the other side of the Estuary to control access to and from the sea via the Adur.
Another factor is that the Welsh were driven into the Weald this means that he could
only have landed between Rye and Havant as the forest of Andredleage only spread from Rye in the east to Havant in the west
(see our Andredsweald pages), and a later Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry states that Port landed at Portsmouth.
It would have been unlikely that he could have landed between Rye and Pevensey, as other documents place the Hastingeas in that area.
Therefore he must have landed in the Arun, Adur, Ouse or Cuckmere valleys as cliffs would have made it awkward to land
anywhere else, the mid point between the Hæstingas/Haestingas/Hastingeas/Hestingorum and Port would have been the Adur valley.
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