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Ware - The Story so Far 2 of 3
The 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' records that, in 895, the Danes moved a large force along the Thames and up the River Lea for 20 miles, where they established a fortification. King Alfred came up the river with an army of Londoners, and tried to engage the Danes in battle but was beaten off. So Alfred, using the Danes' own tactics, built fortifications on either side of the river and started work on diverting the rivers course so that the Danes could not row their ships down the Lea again to the Thames. Then the Danes decamped and marched across country to the river Severn. Most archaeologists now believe that this happened at Ware, and the town's Saxon name 'Waras' comes from the weirs Alfred built.
One result of the Danish wars was the building of Hertford as a Saxon fortified burg, and for a while Ware appears to have been controlled by the authorities in Hertford. However, Domesday Book records that in the later Saxon period, under King Edward the Confessor, Ware was still a substantial settlement with a large population, five mills, and worth more in taxes than Hertford.
After the Norman Conquest Ware regained its independence and began to grow. The first step was taken by Hugh de Grentmaisnil, the lord of the manor recorded in Domesday Book, who obtained a charter in 1078 to found a priory, as a daughter house of his family's Abbey of St Evroul in Normandy. This priory was established to the north of the High Street, in the area of St. Mary's Church, and suppressed by King Henry V in 1414 - it is not to be confused with the Franciscan friary south of the High Street, which is now known, rather confusingly, as 'The Priory'. Hugh and his immediate descendants rebelled against the King, with the result that their estates in Ware were forfeited to the Crown.
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