Place:Ware, Hertfordshire, England

Watchers
NameWare
Alt namesWarasource: Domesday Book (1985 ed.) p 138
Warassource: Domesday Book (1985 ed.) p 138
Waressource: Domesday Book (1985 ed.) p 138
Warressource: Domesday Book (1985 ed.) p 138
TypeParish, Urban district
Coordinates51.8137°N 0.0345°W
Located inHertfordshire, England
See alsoBraughing Hundred, Hertfordshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
East Hertfordshire District, Hertfordshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area since 1974
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ware is a town of around 18,800 people in Hertfordshire, England close to the county town of Hertford. It is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire District. The Prime Meridian passes to the east of Ware.

Ware was on Ermine Street, the Roman road from London to Lincoln. It has been said that Ware is one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe.

The modern name of the town dates from the Anglo-Saxon period when weirs were built to stop the invading Vikings from escaping in their longships after defeat by Alfred the Great in a battle near Ware. It was also a great coaching town, being on the Old North Road, less than a day's journey from London. In the 17th century Ware became the source of the New River, constructed to bring fresh water to London.

England's first turnpike (toll) road ran from Wadesmill (in the parish of Thundridge) to Ware. The town was once a major centre of malting.

With the River Lea flowing through the centre of Ware, transport by water was for many years a significant industry. As an old brewing town (and some of the old maltings still stand, although none are functional), barley was transported in, and beer out via the river. Bargemen born in Ware were given the "freedom of the River Thames" — avoiding the requirement of paying lock dues — as a result of their transport of fresh water and food in during the great plague of 1665–66.

Ware is also known for the Great Bed of Ware, which was mentioned by Shakespeare. It is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but has been on loan to the museum in Ware. The bed is 10'9" square and 7'6" high and has reputedly accommodated 12 London butchers and their wives.

A nineteenth century description

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography):

WARE, a town, a parish, a [registration] sub-district, and a [registration] 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 [railway] 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. Population 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. Population 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 [perpetual] curacy, in the diocese of Rochester. Value of St. [Mary]: £350;* of [Christchurch]: £150. Patron: of St. [Mary], Trinity College, Cambridge; of [Christchurch], R. Hanbury, Esq.; the [perpetual] curacy of Wareside is a separate benefice.

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