Waltham Cross

From Roman times, the village of Walthame had been situated next to the River Lea, a tributary of the River Thames, in the ancient parish of Cheshunt in the Hertford hundred of Hertfordshire., and since the building of its Eleanor Cross in the 1290s, was known as the Walthame Cross. The southern part of Cheshunt was increasingly considered to be part of Waltham Cross, which was formed into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1855, with its church of the Holy Trinity (since renamed Christ Church) built in 1832, designed by the architect Edward Blore. The road, here long called the High Street, had 'Spital Houses' (Hospitalry Houses) near the county boundary, originally built in 1625 but…

At the centre of the town is one of the three surviving medieval Eleanor crosses, memorials completed before the end of 1294 commemorating the overnight resting places of the coffin of Eleanor of Castile, wife of King Edward I, on its processional journey from Lincoln to Westminster Abbey in 1290. It was the only one designed by a foreigner, in name at least, Nicholas Dymenge de Reyns or de Legeri. In the early 18th century, the monument was surveyed by the Society of Antiquaries of London who, advocating its conservation, printed and illustrated the results in the pages of Vetusta Monumenta in 1721. However, restoration did not take place until 1832, when extensive rebuilding was carried…