Wormley is a village and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

, now in the

unparished area In England, an unparished area is an area that is not covered by a civil parish (the lowest level of local government, not to be confused with an ecclesiastical parish). Most urbanised districts of England are either entirely or partly unparish ...

Hoddesdon Hoddesdon () is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, lying entirely within the London Metropolitan Area and Greater London Urban Area. The area is on the River Lea and the Lee Navigation along with the New River. Hoddesdon is ...

, in the

Broxbourne Broxbourne is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Hoddesdon, in the Broxbourne district, in Hertfordshire, England, north of London, with a population of 15,303 at the 2011 Census.Broxbourne Town population 2011 It is ...

district, in the county of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, England. The village is part of the census ward of Wormley and Turnford, which had a population of 8,146 at the 2001 census. In 1931 the parish had a population of 930.

Geography

Wormley is located east of the A10 road, which links

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, commonly known as the Great Cambridge Road. Wormley is sandwiched between

and Turnford with a high road of shops. It is 1 mile south of Broxbourne, and the nearest railway station is

. Wormley is close to the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of t ...

which runs from

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

towards

Wheathampstead Wheathampstead is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, north of St Albans. The population of the ward at the 2001 census was 6,058. Included within the parish is the small hamlet of Amwell. History Settlements in this area were ...

, then south towards London where it meets the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

. Wormley Rovers Football Club and Wormley Cricket Club are based at Wormley playing fields. Wormley also has Top Field and Cozens Grove Local Nature Reserve.

History

The name is thought to derive from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

"snake-infested ''leah''"; the last element could mean "clearing", or perhaps " woodland pasture". Wormley was one of the manors which were granted by

Harold Godwinson Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon English king. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the C ...

to the canons of

Waltham Holy Cross Waltham Abbey is a civil parish in Epping Forest District in Essex, England. Located approximately north-northeast of central London and adjacent to the Greater London boundary, it is a partly urbanised parish with large sections of open land ...

. It was entered in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1085 as ''Wermelai'', with a total of 28 households. Wormley remained under the control of the monastery until its dissolution in 1540 when it was granted to

Sir Edward North Edward North, 1st Baron North ( 1504 – 1564) was an English peer and politician. He was the Clerk of the Parliaments 1531–1540 and Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire 1557–1564. A successful lawyer, he was created the first Baron North, gi ...

. The

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

, called

Wormleybury Wormleybury is an 18th-century house surrounded by a landscaped park of 57 ha (140 acres) near Wormley in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, England, a few miles north of Greater London. The house was rebuilt in the 1770s from an earlier house built ...

, on the south side of Church Lane, was totally rebuilt in 1734 and remodelled in 1767 and 1782 by Robert Mylne for Sir Abraham Hume. It has a stone

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

and steps, with an octagonal bell turret. There is interior decoration of 1779 by

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...

. It is a Grade I

Listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The parish church of St Lawrence has a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

dating from the 12th century. There are several

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

es from the 15th century and a marble monument to the Purvy family dated 1617. Coal-tax-post-Broxbourne

There are two

coal-tax post Coal-tax posts are boundary marker posts found in southern England. They were erected in the 1860s and form an irregular loop between 12 and 18 miles from London to mark the points where taxes on coal were due to the Corporation of London. There ...

s in Wormley, both in unusual locations. One is in the middle of Wormley Wood and the other on the north side of a country lane at a point where it is hard to imagine any significant trade traffic passing by. They were erected following the London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Act 1861, and thanks to them, many of the bridges across the

were paid for. On 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with Hoddesdon and Cheshunt, part also went to form

Brickendon Liberty Brickendon is a village in the civil parish of Brickendon Liberty in the district of East Hertfordshire about south of the county town Hertford, and is served by Bayford railway station. Centred on a traditional village green and a village pub ...

Community facilities

St Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman ...

's Church forms part of the Parish of Broxbourne with Wormley and is a member of the New River Group Ministry. Wormley Church of England Primary School was founded in 1864. It had 464 pupils in 2017/18. In 2014, the area of Wormley and Turnford was awarded £1m from the Big Local Trust to invest in the community over the next 10 years.The Big Local Trust
Retrieved 5 March 2015

Personalities

David Bentley David Michael Bentley (born 27 August 1984) is an English former professional footballer who played primarily as a winger, but also played as a central midfielder or as a second striker. Bentley started his career with Arsenal in the Premie ...

started his footballing career at Wormley Youth Football Club.

References

External links

Wormley High Street as it looked in the pastWormley coal tax posts
{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Former civil parishes in Hertfordshire Hoddesdon