WALTHAM

See also:

• ABBEY (Lat. abbatia; from Syr. abba, father)
• ABBEY, EDWIN AUSTIN (1852– )

ABBEY, or WALTHAM  HoLY CROSS, a market town in the Epping parliamentary division of Essex, England, on the Lea, and on the Cambridge branch of the Great Eastern railway, 13 M . N. by E. from London . Pop. of urban district of Waltham Holy Cross (1901) 6549 . The neighbouring county of the Lea valley is flat and unlovely, but to the E. and N.E. low hills rise in the direction of Hainault and Epping Forests . Of the former magnificent cruciform abbey church the only portion of importance now remaining is the nave, forming the present parish church, the two easternmost bays being converted into the chancel . It is a very fine specimen of ornate Norman . Only the western suuoorts of the ancient tower now remain . Newton . It is situated on a series of rugged hills rising from the f A tower corresponding with the present size of the church was erected in 1556 and, restored in 1798 . On the south side of the church is a lady chapel dating from the end of the reign of Edward II. or the beginning of that of Edward III., containing some good Decorated work, with a crypt below . Of the monastic buildings there remain only a bridge and gateway and ether slight fragments . Bishop Hall became curate of Waltham in 1612, and Thomas Fuller was curate from 1648 to 1658 .

At Waltham Cross, about 1 m . W. of Waltham in

Hertfordshire, is the beautiful cross erected (1291—1294) by Edward I. at one of the resting-places of the corpse of Queen Eleanor on its way to burial in Westminster Abbey . It is of Caen stone and is supposed to have been designed by Pietro Cavallini, a Roman sculptor . It is hexagonal in plan and consists of three stages, decreasing towards the top, which is finished by a crocketed spirelet and cross . The lower stage is divided into compartments enclosing the arms of England, Castile and Leon, and Ponthieu . Its restoration has not been wholly satisfactory . The royal gun-powder factory is in the immediate vicinity; government works were built in 1890 at Quinton Hill, 1 m . W. of the town, for the manufacture of cordite; and the town possesses gun-cotton and percussion-cap factories, flour-mills, malt kilns and breweries . Watercresses are largely grown in the neighbourhood, and there are extensive market gardens and nurseries . The town probably grew up round the church, which was built early in the rlth century to contain a portion of the true cross . The manor was held by the abbot and convent of the Holy Cross from the reign of Henry I. to that of Henry VIII . The town was never more than a market town until 1894 .

In 1845 a

local board of twelve members was formed to govern it; in 1894, under the Local Government Act, it was brought under an urban district council . The market of Waltham was granted to the abbey by Richard I. and confirmed in 1227 by Henry III., who also conceded two fairs in 125r: one for ten days following the Invention of the Holy Cross, the other on the vigil of the Exaltation of the Cross and for seven days after . The charter from which the present market appears to be derived was granted by Queen Elizabeth in 156o, and gave a Tuesday market for miscellaneous stock . The fairs have died out, although as late as 1792 they were held on the 14th of May and the 25th and 26th of September . The fisheries in the river Lea appear in records from 1o86 onwards . At the end of the 17th century a fulling mill is mentioned, and by the year 1721 three powder mills were in existence .