The name Fratton was once Froddington, a Saxon name which originally meant "Frodda's Farm" or "Frodda's village". A pub on Fratton Road is still named "The Froddington Arms".[3]
There is a commemorative plaque by the petrol station near Fratton Asda, marking where a bomb shelter was hit by a bomb on 10 January 1941, killing 80 people.[4]
Goldsmith's Farm and Fratton Common were part of the original small rural village originally called Froddington, the only visible evidence of this being the presence of a public house, "The Froddington Arms" on the western side of Fratton Road. Froddington was one of the three small settlements on Portsea Island mentioned in the Domesday Book. Due to developments during the industrial age, more of the surrounding land was absorbed by Portsmouth in the 1870s and 1880s, principally by new housing developments.
