Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes referred to as Old Welwyn or Welwyn Village, to distinguish it from the much newer and larger settlement of Welwyn Garden City, about a mile to the south.
Etymology
The name is derived from Old English welig meaning "willow", referring to the trees that nestle on the banks of the River Mimram as it flows through the village. The name itself is an evolution from weligun, the dative form of the word, and so is more precisely translated as "at the willows", unlike nearby Willian which is likely to mean simply "the willows".
Through having its name derived from welig rather than sealh (the more commonly cited Old English word for willow), Welwyn is possibly cognate with Heligan in Cornwall whose name is derived from helygen, the Cornish word for willow that shares a root with welig.
The nearby modern village of Digswell (around Welwyn North railway station) was originally called 'High Welwyn' when first developed at the beginning of the 20th century.
History
Situated in the valley of the River Mimram, Welwyn has hosted human activity since the Palaeolithic with stone tools from that era having been found alongside the river and further inland across the area. Settlement across the area seems to have become established during the Bronze Age according to various recovered artefacts and crop marks left by round barrows and burial mounds from that period.
Iron Age remnants have not been detected until the Late Iron Age, with various local chieftain burials dated to the 1st Century BC gaining national prominence.
The Belgae Celtic culture colonised much of South-Eastern England in the 1st century BC, with Welwyn in the area believed to have been settled by the Catuvellauni tribe.
Following the Roman invasion, Welwyn was settled by the Romans. The area was marshy, and the settlement of Welwyn was a known fording point across the river since at least Roman times when the Roman road through the village was laid out, leading to the establishment of the settlement around the road and the ford. Many Roman artifacts have been found in and around the village, including the remains of several Roman villas close by.
The Welwyn Roman Baths (the remains of a third-century Roman bath house) have been preserved and are open to the public. One particular excavation revealed a large Roman cemetery very close to the site of the current church, which itself is known to date back to at least Saxon times (see below). The church lies directly alongside the route of the Roman road.
The archaeological record in Welwyn is nearly continuous from the late Iron Age (Celtic) through to recorded times, lacking proof of occupation only in the early Anglo-Saxon period. It is therefore likely that Welwyn has been continuously occupied for over 2000 years.
Welwyn was at the heart of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon Tewingas tribe and was the site of an early minster church. In 1990, a proposal was made to rename the village as "Welwyn Minster" to shake off the unpopular "Old" name.
The massacre on St. Brice's day on 13 November 1002, when the Saxons turned on their newly settled Danish neighbours, is said to have commenced near Welwyn.
A Norman church was built on the site of the Saxon church about 1190. The nave of the present church (St Mary's), was built in the 13th century, the chancel arch being the most obvious early structure. There are two medieval corbels at the east end of the south aisle. Patronage of the church passed through several hands until in 1549 it was sold to the Wilshere family, who lived at The Frythe until relatively recently.
Much later, in the 17th century, as it lies on the old Great North Road, it became an important staging post and a number of coaching inns remain as public houses. After the Great Northern Railway by-passed the village due to the objections of local landowners, Welwyn became less important. Having previously been seen as a town on par with Hatfield and Stevenage, it gradually was seen as a village. The 20th century brought major expansion to the area, as estates to the south, west and north of the village were built up.
Historical descriptions
Despite this long history, at the beginning of the 20th century Welwyn was regarded as a sleepy backwater. One writer wrote that Welwyn, a small town in the Maran Valley, can show little of interest beyond many quaint cottages, and the church.
In 1870–1872, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Welwyn thus: