The Dispute Over the Marshes

A 600-year border feud

By Nicholas Blatchley

Lee Valley Park
Claire Stretch

Border feuds are normally associated with far-off countries, or with the wilder areas of Britain, such as the English/Scottish borderlands in the middle ages. It’s less well known, however, that a border feud raged between Cheshunt and Waltham Abbey for at least six hundred years.  

The River Lea (I resist the recent fashion to spell it Lee) has played a major part in history, forming as it does not only part of the border between Hertfordshire and Essex but, at one time, part of the border between England and the Danelaw.  

King Alfred’s strategy

In the year 894, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates, a Danish fleet sailed from the Thames up the River Lea, at that time considerably broader than now, reaching Ware. King Alfred had huge ditches dug near Cheshunt to draw off the waters, creating in place of the large river a marshland through which various streams wandered.  

Which River Lea?

As a military strategy, this was a triumphal success, but Alfred left a more local problem. The boundary between the parishes of Cheshunt and Waltham Abbey, as well as the country border, was defined as the River Lea; however, as late as 1655, Dr Fuller’s History of Waltham Abbey describes how  

The River Ley seven times parteth from itself, whose tempestuous stream in coming to the town is crossed again with so many bridges.  

So which stream was the border? The reason this was important was that the gradually drying marshland provided extraordinarily rich pasture: it’s said that young cattle were restricted to half an hour’s grazing a day, for fear of them overeating. Both parishes wanted as much of this land as possible, so Cheshunt claimed that the boundary was the easternmost stream, now the Old River Lea, whereas Waltham Abbey claimed it was the westernmost, the Small River Lea.  

Feuding parishes

The first law-suit was brought in 1248, in which Peter, Duke of Savoy, Lord of the Manor of Cheshunt, made a claim against Simon, the Abbot of Waltham, for the disputed land, which eventually found in favour of Waltham Abbey.  

This was not the end of the matter, though, and many disputes and fights erupted over the following centuries between the parishioners over this land. In 1601, for example, the parish records of Waltham Abbey record a dispute during the “beating the bounds” ceremony of Cheshunt:  

The Curate of Cheshunt and some of the Churchwardens coming in their perambulation to our hye-bridge; and for so doing and coming out of their own libertye they were for their paynes thrust into a dych called Hook’s Dich.    

Compromise

Even as late as 1870, a dispute arose when a piece of marshland near Cheshunt Lock, traditionally shared by the parishes, was fenced off by Cheshunt, and the Waltham Marshwardens forcibly opened it. Eventually, however, a compromise was reached, by which the southern part of the border follows the Small River Lea and the northern part the Old River Lea. With the decline of farming in the area, the issue has ceased to matter, and marshland on both sides of the border now forms the Nature Park, free to be enjoyed by all.

This page was added on 23/02/2011.

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  • Rather the reverse I would suggest. Leagrave is named after the River Lea.

    The tiny Lea ran along the edge of the school in Leagrave where I began my teaching career – more years ago than I care to remember!

    By Robert Oakhill (10/05/2021)
  • THE RIVER LEA IS NAMED AFTER THE PLACE FROM WHERE IT RISES , I E LEAGRAVE PARK BEDFORDSHIRE ANY OTHER ” NAME ” IS SPURIOUS TO SAY THE LEAST.

    By Kenneth Charles lewis , Robson (09/05/2021)
  • I’m pleased to see that people are holding back from the spelling of the river Lea as Lee. When it is runs through the Lea Valley. I was born and grew up in Cheshunt. The marshes and the lovely outdoor pool were on my doorstep. Many hours were spent by the gush in the Lea collecting stickle backs and Gudgeon,We were free wild horses ran the marshes and invariabley escaped running up Windmill Lane. My memories of Cheshunt along with Grundy Park and Cedars Park.Not to mention the spectaculiar display of the Dreft laden fountain staged for the big day when the water was turned on.

    By Penny (16/02/2014)
  • Looking at the marshes now I find it very difficult to recognise the area, as lads in the late thirties we would spend our summer days splashing about in the stream that ran paralell and between the railway and the Lea itself, at one part it used to be about four feet deep but as we were only 7/8yrs old it was deep enough to swim in. There were hardly any weeds to speak of but we had to spend a few minutes removing the leeches that had attached themselves to us, great fun. Our school (Kings Rd. Waltham Cross) used to take us to Cheshunt swimming baths for lessons, this was fed by the greeny brown water of the River Lea, it was open air,only heated by the sun and could be very cold. One night during the war we saw a mine hanging from a parachute drifting across our houses, it finally landed on the swimming baths flattening the dressing rooms. Not to be out done the sides were re-erected and with no roofs on it was business as usual rain or shine. Fishing in the big river was another pass time catching Roach and Perch but often had to move out of the way to allow horse drawn barges to pass, a wonderful touch of Old England. When we were a little older we would walk along the river bank to Broxbourne (no cars to run us about) and hire a sciff to race each other up the river, lovely memories of Hertfordshire, I now live in Dorset.

    By Ron Bennett (23/02/2011)