Old Hampshire Mapped
Cox's Hampshire
Transcription (50)Port Peris
Vespasian
Portchester
Portus Magnus
harbour
Portchester Castle
Portsea
salterns
Ports Creek
Port Peris, where, by Tradition, Vespasian first arrived. Our Ancestors called it Port Chester, not from Porta, a Saxon, but from Portus, an Harbour; for Ptolemy calls it [ ], the spacious Harbour, from the Largeness of it; as Pliny tells us, that there is a Place in Africa, called Portus Magnus, i. e. the great Port.
Here was a large Castle remaining in Mr. Camden's Days, which commanded a free Prospect of all the Harbours below, but when the Sea retiring from this Shore made the Harbour by Degrees less commodious, the Inhabitants removed from hence to Portsey, an adjoining Island, which is fourteen Miles round.
At high Tide this Isle is encompassed with Sea Water, of which they make Salt, and is joined to the Continent by a Bridge, which had of old a small Castle to defend it. Athelfled, Wife of King Edgar, gave it to the Abbey of Winchester, and here, at the Entrance of the Creek, our Ancestors built a Town, from thence called
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