FROM LIVERPOOL STREET TO WALTHAM CROSS.
To (4 miles) Clapton. Here we diverge to the left from the Chingford line to follow the valley of the Lea (good fishing). 6 miles. Tottenham; 7 miles. Northumberland Park. 7+ miles. Angel Road. 10 miles. Pander's End; 10+ miles. Brimsdown. 12 miles. Enfield Lock. The Royal Small Arms Factory lies + miles east
12+ miles. Waltham Cross. In the village (Four Swans), + miles to the west, stands a fine and well-restored Eleanor's Cross. Farther to the west is Theobalds Park, where James I. died in 1625. The old Temple Bar was re-erected in 1888 at one of the entrances to the park, circa + hour's walk from the village. About 1 mile east of the station another village has sprung up around Waltham Abbey, the oldest Norman building in England, noted also as the burial-place of King Harold, slain at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The present Abbey Church of Waltham Holy Cross preserves the nave of a sumptous church founded by Harold before his accession and consecrated in 1060, on the site of a smaller church dating from the reign of Canute. Henry II. reorganized and enlarged the foundation, and its mitred abbots attained great power and wealth in the succeeding centuries. The choir (apparently much extended by the 13th century) and transepts of Harold's church, together with the monastic buildings, were pulled down, and the central tower collapsed, soon after the Dissolution in 1540, when the abbey was conferred by Henry VIII. upon Sir Anthony Denny. The Lady Chapel is an addition of the 14th century; the West Tower (90 feet high) was built in 1556-58 as a support to the damaged church; while the chancel is modern. The church was restored in 1860, the Lady Chapel in 1876, and the tower in 1905. Waltham Abbey is 'the single church below the hill' of Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,' and its peal of eight bells is apostrophized in the stanzas beginning 'Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky.'
