Cosham history: 5 things you didn't know
A dying Saxon king, a village swallowed by a city, a tram terminus and a computer giant's headquarters.
King Æthelred the Unready lay terminally ill in Cosham when Cnut of Denmark began his invasion of England in 1015, according to Wikipedia. Cosham's name is Saxon, meaning 'Cossa's homestead'.
An English king lay terminally ill in Cosham when the Danes invaded. According to Wikipedia's Cosham article, King Æthelred the Unready was dying there when Cnut of Denmark began his invasion in 1015. It is the biggest event in the history of a district that most people know only as a place to pass through. Here are four more facts to go with it.
What does the name mean?
Cosham is a Saxon name meaning "Cossa's homestead", according to the Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names, as quoted by Wikipedia. It was originally pronounced "Cossum". "Cosh-um" has been more widely used since the later 20th century, and the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names gives both. So if you have been arguing about the pronunciation, you are both historically defensible. The older "Cossum" form is the one the name began with, and the newer one is simply what plenty of people now say.
A village in the fields
Until the 1920s, Cosham was a separate small village surrounded by fields. Wikipedia says its oldest houses, Chalk Cottage (1777) and Mile Stone Cottages (1793), were demolished in the 1960s and replaced by a car park. That detail rests on a single source, so we offer it as the standard account rather than a hard fact.
The end of the tram line
Cosham station was, until 1935, the terminus for city trams and trolleybuses, and for the trams of the Portsdown and Horndean Light Railway, which opened on 3 March 1903. In other words, for more than three decades Cosham was where the city's tram network met the line out towards Horndean.
Where IBM put its UK headquarters
In the 1970s, IBM built its UK headquarters at North Harbour, which is now Lakeside Business Park. Wikipedia's Cosham article describes it as the UK headquarters, and its Hampshire article also places IBM's UK headquarters at Cosham. It is a reminder that this corner of Portsmouth has been a place for modern business as well as old history, and that the district's story runs from a Saxon homestead to the computer age.
The dying king
In 1015 Cnut of Denmark began his invasion of England. The Gazetteer entry for Cosham and Wikipedia both place the sick king in Cosham at the time. Æthelred was nicknamed "the Unready", and the sources we used are brief on the detail, so we have kept to what they say. What is clear is the timing: a king in poor health, an invader arriving and a town on the south coast caught up in the middle of it.
How to use this
Cosham is a short drive from Waterlooville. Next time you pass through, remember what the village once was, and who may have lain ill there a thousand years ago.
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