Cheshunt

"CHESHUNT, a parish and village in the hundred of Hertford, in the county of Herts and also partly in the county of Essex, 2 miles N.W. of Waltham Abbey, and 12 miles from London byroad, or 16¾ by the Great Eastern railway, which has a station here. It is an extensive and pleasant village, extending along both sides of the high road, with many detached villa residences, surrounded by gardens and shrubberies. It was formerly a market town, and is called in Domesday Book Cestrehunt. It is still a petty sessions town and chief station of the N. division of the metropolitan police. The parish, situated near the river Lea and the New river, includes Cheshunt Street, Waltham Cross, and Woodside. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester, value £401, in the patronage of the Marquis of Salisbury. The parish church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome fabric, erected in the time of Henry VI. by Nicholas Dixon, who was for 30 years rector of the parish, and whose tomb, bearing the date of 1448, is still to be seen in the chancel. It also contains four fine monumental brasses, and several monuments to the memory of the Atkynses and Dacres of Cheshunt Park, once the property and occasional residence of Cardinal Wolsey. There is a district church (Trinity) at Waltham Cross, the living of which is a perpetual curacy, value £160, patron the vicar.

This place has an additional interest from having been the residence of Richard Cromwell, some time Protector; who, on his return from abroad after the Restoration quietly settled in this village, where he resided under the name of Clarke from 1680 till his death in 1712. Not far from the parish church is the old stone cross, recently restored; and the Countess of Huntingdon's College, for 40 clerical students brought from Trevecca in 1792, and now affiliated to the London University. The principal is the Rev. Dr. Harris, and the education provided is of the first class. There is also a free school endowed by Dewhurst with £148 a year. The parochial charities produce £480 a year, to which Beaumont's trust contributes £310. There are almshouses at Turner's Hill for 10 widows, with small endowments. In the vicinity is Theobalds, once the seat of the great Lord Burghley, and now the residence of Sir G. B. Prescott, Bart., who inherits the manor of Cheshunt-Paramount through the Cromwells. There are four other manors within the parish which have branched off since the Domesday Survey, when the manor was held by Earl Alan, the Conqueror's nephew, who commanded the rear of the Norman army at the battle of Hastings, and was rewarded with the earldom of Richmond, and the whole of Richmondshire, to which this manor was an appanage. It afterwards passed to John of Gaunt, and the Fitzroys, and subsequently to the Cromwells. There are still some remains of a nunnery, founded by Peter de Belingey in the reign of Stephen. At the Cheshunt Wash, near Turnford, have been discovered many coins of the emperors Hadrian, Claudius, and Constantine, which were exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries by Dr. Stukeley and Mr. Sawyer in 1724. This discovery, in conjunction with the traces of an ancient camp and a military way towards St. Alban's, and the Roman road of Ermine Street, has induced many antiquarians to fix upon this village as the Roman Durolitum."

"THEOBALDS, a mansion in the parish of Cheshunt, and county Herts, 2 miles W. of Waltham Abbey. It issituated on the New River, and was built by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, near the site of an ancient moated hall called Thebauldes, in 1560. It was frequently visited by Queen Elizabeth and James I., who exchanged Hatfield House for it, when it became a royal palace, but was dismantled by order of Parliament in 1650, except the cloisters, which stood till 1750. The manor, granted to Monk by William III., came to the Bentincks, Montagues, and Cromwells, of Cheshunt, by whom the mansion was rebuilt in 1765, and is now the seat of Lady Prescott, and Theobalds Park of Sir Henry Meux, Bart."

[Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868]
by Colin Hinson ©2020