Portsmouth enrols 23,000 students and is ranked among the world's best modern universities. Portsmouth is also the birthplace of author Charles Dickens and engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The Romans built Portus Adurni, a fort, at nearby Portchester in the late third century. The city's Old English name "Portesmuða" is derived from "port", meaning a haven, and "muða", the mouth of a large river or estuary. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" has a warrior called Port and his two sons killing a noble Briton in Portsmouth in 501. Winston Churchill, in his "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples", says that Port was a pirate
Milton, Portsmouth several pubs located along the former canal path, partly delineating its route towards Landport where it ended at the eponymously named Arundel Street. Traces of the canal survive further into central Portsmouth, as the railway line from Fratton to Portsmouth and Southsea railway station, runs along the earlier canal bed. This can be most easily seen from a street called Canal Walk, just off Fratton Bridge. Part of the former Portsmouth and Arundel Canal was located directly south of Middle Farm (later Milton Park) which was built across Portsea Island to Landport. When the canal closed in the middle of