Waltham Abbey
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.
Royal Gunpowder Mills
The Royal GunPower mills started life as fulling mill for cloth production which was set up by the monks of the Abbey. The first gunpowder production was thought to be put into place because of the 2nd Dutch War where gunpowder was in high demand but short on supply. Ralph Hudson bought the mills in 1665, he used saltpetre made in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
One of the first examples in the 18th century of an industrialised factory system, although not often recognised, was The Waltham Abbey Mills.
Source: www.walthamabbeygenealogy.co.uk |
