Cheshunt

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."