Bishops Stortford, United Kingdom

In Roman times, Stortford was on the line of the Roman road, Stane Street, which ran from St Albans to Colchester via Braughing. Construction started around AD 50 on the road. Little evidence from the period survives except for excavations showing a section of the road, evidence of a cremation facility and a burial site. It has been suggested that it is likely there was a Roman fort near the ford at Stortford, but archaeological excavations have found no evidence for such a fort. Any Roman settlement at Stortford was probably abandoned in the 5th century after the Romans withdrew from Britain.

During the Anglo-Saxon era, a new settlement grew up at Stortford. Immediately prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066, Stortford was a manor owned by someone called Edeva the Fair. The manor was sold to William the Norman, Bishop of London, sometime between 1066 and 1075.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor of Storteford as having 29 households. The population in 1086 is thought to have been around 120.

By 1086, the motte-and-bailey Waytemore Castle had been built. It acted as a centre for defence and was also used for civil administration, hosting the Bishop's Court where the bishops of London administered their role as lord of the manor. In 1211, King John had the castle dismantled. Rebuilding of the castle started the following year at John's expense, and he stayed the night in the castle in 1216. By the 15th century, the castle had fallen into disrepair, and the Bishop's Court had moved to Hockerill, to the east of the town.

A priest is mentioned in the Domesday Book, suggesting Stortford was by then a parish. Its parish church, dedicated to St Michael, was rebuilt in the early 15th century. The upper part of the tower and the spire were added in 1812, and the church forms a notable landmark in the town.

In terms of governance, early medieval Stortford was part of the Braughing Hundred. In the early 14th century the town had some of the characteristics of a borough. Between 1306 and 1336 the town was taxed as a borough and had burgesses. It appears to have been a mesne or seigneurial borough subordinate to the bishops of London as lord of the manor; the town does not appear to have been granted a borough charter. Civil authority came to be exercised through two manorial courts at Waytemore Castle and the Rectory. Stortford briefly served as a parliamentary borough, returning members to parliament several times between 1311 and 1340.

In the mid 15th century, Stortford was a primarily agricultural community, but had also acquired a tanning industry. By the 16th century, Stortford had become an important centre of the malting industry. Not only were the local soils well suited for grains, but the fact that the town was just 35 miles from London provided an impetus to its development. The economic draw of the maltings and the town's market supported a large number of inns and public houses by the middle of the 16th century pointing to its prosperity.

Over the following hundred years, Stortford grew markedly. The population of Stortford reached 1,500 by 1660. This was despite a series of a dozen plagues between the 1560s and 1660s. Charles I visited the town in 1625, 1629 and 1642.

During the English Civil War in the 1640s, Stortford backed the Parliamentarians, with the Manor of Stortford being sequestered from the bishop of London and sold for £2,845. It was returned to the bishop at the Restoration. The Great Plague of 1666–7 reduced the population to only around 600 by 1700. The effects of the plague were so severe that the town had to appeal to the Hertfordshire magistrates, who responded by levying a rate on every parish in the county for the relief of Bishop's Stortford, Hoddesdon and Cheshunt.

The main north-south route had historically passed through the town centre, running along South Street, Potter Street, North Street and Northgate End. In the 1660s, King Charles II made numerous journeys from London to Newmarket for the races, and he disliked the noise and congestion of Stortford, with its odorous market, maltings and tanneries. Moreover, the route was not always passable, as noted by diarist Samuel Pepys, who made the following entry in his diary on 23 May 1668: 'and so to Bishop's Stafford [sic]. The ways mighty full of water so as hardly to be passed'. As a result, the road from London to Newmarket was diverted to the east of the centre of Stortford in 1670, following a new route which instead ran through the outlying settlement of Hockerill.