Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WARE

WARE, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Herts. The town stands on the river Lea, and on the Eastern Counties railway, 2½ miles ENE of Hertford; was called Guare or Guaris by the Saxons, and Waras at Domesday; was the scene of a manœuvre by the Danes, who brought up their vessels to it and constructed a dam across the river to defend them, and of the counteraction of that manœuvre by Alfred, who diverted the water from the river's bed and stranded the vessels; belonged, at Domesday, to Hugh de Grentemaisnel, who founded at it a Benedictine priory, a cell to Uticain abbey, in Normandy: passed to R. Blanchmains, the Earls of Winchester, the Wakes, the Hollands, the Montacutes, the Nevilles, the Plantagenets, the Fanshaws, and the Bydes; was, in 1242, the place of a tournament, at which the Earl of Pembroke was trampled to death; suffered damage by a flood in 1408; is noted by Shakespear, Johnson, and other writers for possession of an ancient carved oak bedstead, still to be seen at one of its inns; is now a seat of petty-sessions; includes, on the opposite side of the Lea, a suburb called Amwell-End; carries on malting, brewing, ropemaking, and sack-making; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, a banking office, two chief inns, a police station, a town hall, a corn-exchange of 1867, a cattle-market of 1868, an iron bridge of 1845, a public library and reading room, a fine ancient church recently restored at a cost of £5,810, another church of 1858, three dissenting chapels, an endowed grammar-school with £50 a year, national and British schools, two suites of alms houses, a workhouse, general charities £303, a weekly market on Tuesday, and two annual fairs. Pop. in 1861, 5,002. Houses, 1,005.

The parish includes Wareside hamlet, and comprises 4,700 acres. Real property, £31,057; of which £100 are in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 5,088; in 1861, 5,397. Houses, 1,077. The head living or St. Mary's is a vicarage, and that of Christchurch is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Rochester. Value of St. M., £350;* of C., £150. Patron, of St. M., Trinity College, Cambridge; of C., R. Hanbury, Esq.; the p. curacy of Wareside is a separate benefice.—The sub-district includes Thundridge parish, and comprises 6,900 acres. Pop., 5,886. Houses, 1,168. -The district comprehends also Standon, Stanstead, and Hoddesdon sub-districts; and comprises 35,747 acres. Poor rates in 1863, £11,640. Pop. in 1851, 16,482; in 1861, 16,515. Houses, 3,339. Marriages in 1863, 101; births, 484,-of which 25 were illegitimate; deaths, 345,-of which 110 were at ages under 5 years, and 13 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 791; births, 4,948; deaths, 2,919. The places of worship, in 1851, were 17 of the Church of England, with 5,980 sittings; 2 of Independents, with 250 s.; 2 of Quakers, with 470 s.; 4 of Wesleyans, with 1,092 s.; 2 of Primitive Methodists, with 90 s.; 1 of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, with 70 s.; 2 undefined, with 105 s.; 1 of the Catholic and Apostolic church, with 85 s.; and 2 of Roman Catholics, with 325 s. The schools were 30 public day-schools, with 1,995 scholars; 37 private day-schools, with 691 s.; 15 Sunday schools, with 1,156 s.; and 1 evening school for adults, with 13 s.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Ware AP/CP       Ware Urban CP       Ware SubD       Ware RegD/PLU       Hertfordshire AncC
Place: Ware

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