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Waltham Abbey History

The Early Days

The towns name 'Waltham' is a dervied from weald or wald "forest" and ham "homestead" or "enclosure". The name Waltham Abbey has only been in use since the 16th Century, the anceint parish name as whole is Waltham Holy Cross, The former urban district was named Waltham Holy Cross, rather than Waltham Abbey.

Waltham Abbey also has traces of Roman settlement in its town, one of which being Ermine Street which lies 5 km west running through Cheshunt Park. A causeway across the River Lea from Waltham Cross may be a Roman construction. There is even a local legend claiming that Boudica's rebellion against the Romans ended in the neighbourhood.

Records of Waltham Abbey began during the reign of Canute in the early 11th Century bearer Tovi (Tofig) the Proud, founded a church here in Walthma Abbey to house the miraculous cross discovered at Montacute in Somerset.It was this cross

that gave Waltham the ealiest suffix to its name (Waltham Cross). In 1045 , after Tovi's death, Waltham was reverted to King Edward (the Confessor), who then gave it the future King, Earl Harold Godwinson. Harold rebuilt the church, this time in stone around 1060. After King Harold's death in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, his body was brought back to Waltham for burial near the High Alter. Today this is marked by a stone slab in the churchyard. In 1177 as part of Henry II remorse for the murder of both Thomas Becket and Archbishop of Canterbury, he refounded Harold's Church as a priory of Augustinian Canons Regular of sixteen canons and a prior. This was altered in 1184 and Waltham became an abbey with the presents of an abbot and twenty-four canons, this then grew to be the richest monastery in Essex. Dependent on the Abbey, the towns to the west and south the town grew up. In 1540 the Abbey was the last monastic house to be dissolved, and for a time afterwards the town went into decline.