The local history gallery at Hove Museum & Art Gallery explores the growth of Hove from prehistoric times until the present day. Archaeology, buildings and objects have all left clues about early settlement in the area.

Hove as we know it today has developed from lots of smaller communities, which until the nineteenth century had their own separate identities: Aldrington, Benfield, Hangleton, Hove and West Blatchington. Portslade is also made up of the smaller settlements of Portslade Village and Portslade by Sea, once known as Copperas Gap. The local history gallery, laid out chronologically, explores the major settlements of each time period.

For much of its history the village of Hove was overshadowed by the larger and more prosperous communities at Portslade, Hangleton and West Blatchington. From Victorian times however, Hove developed quickly into a new town swallowing up the parishes of Aldrington in 1894 and Hangleton and West Blatchington in 1928. In 1974 Portslade also became part of Hoves administrative area.

Until Victorian times, green fields divided Hove village and Brighton. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Hove residents vigorously tried to keep their independence. Finally in 1997 Brighton and Hoves councils merged to create a new unitary authority. Brighton & Hove became a city in 2001.