When I began telling people about the intention of building a comprehensive website, covering the history of Portsmouth, the majority of replies I initially received were along the lines of: "But surely there are enough Portsmouth history websites out there already?" And I can understand that reaction, if that were actually true.

Yes, there are a lot of sites about Portsmouth, but most of them are "specialist" sites, dealing with particular aspects of the local history - Mary Rose, HMS Victory, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and Portsmouth area pubs, to name but a few - and, excellent though most of them undoubtedly are, there is no really comprehensive history of Portsmouth.

Some have been started and left unfinished, some are very sketchy and others contain elements of incorrect information, or information given as fact that can only be surmise; almost all of Portsmouth's early records were destroyed by French raiders between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries and most of what we do know about Portsmouth in its early days comes from the few fragmentary records that survived in churches, monasteries and other repositories that remained out of range of those foreign vandals.

As I write this, in July 2009, we have made a start on a section which is a brief overview of the history of Portsmouth, which should come up to the beginning of the twentieth century in a few more days, but then we will be starting to create more detailed sections on certain periods, events and people.

We will also incorporate links to all those specialist sites I mentioned earlier (in fact, we already have a good few, on the navigation bar at the top of every page), as there seems little point in duplicating things that other people have already dealt with admirably.

In time - and this is not going to be an overnight job, by any means! - I hope that the site will grow into a really worthwhile asset, available freely to teachers, school and college pupils and writers and researchers of all ages, professional and amateur alike.

I hope, too, that many of the people who find this site and visit it regularly will also contribute, wherever possible, either with photographs, documents, or personal reminiscences, although I would urge you not to post anything off to us, without first contacting us via e-mail (we will then phone you and make arrangements for the safe delivery and return of anything that you cannot scan and send electronically).

Also, if we should make any factual mistakes - none of us is truly perfect, after all! - we would appreciate you letting us know, if possible with reliable sources from which we can make corrections. In that way, this site will itself become THE reliable resource for Portsmouth history.

That's a big undertaking, I know, but I believe that, with patience, hard work and the cooperation and good will of our readers, we really can achieve that goal. And, no matter how large this site grows, the likelihood of us ever being able to say that it is finished and that we are totally satisfied with it is ... well, unlikely, I suppose. But the ongoing enterprise should be great fun, nevertheless.

The best place to start in this site will undoubtedly be the Index Page, which we have started. At the moment it is in a fairly rudimentary form, but, as the site grows, we will be reorganising and expanding the Index in what I hope will be an easy and user-friendly form.

And, as you work your way through the pages, remember that we are always open to suggestions on ways in which we can improve both the content and its presentation and accessibility.

So, for now, that's it from the introduction, although you can always keep up to date with what's going on here by visiting my Blog Spot, which I'm updating every few days.

I hope you enjoy your visit here and that it will only be the first of many, and I thank you for your time and interest.