Ware, United Kingdom

In the Domesday Book of 1086, the town was named Waras from the natural weirs in the River Lea. The historic rivalry with nearby Hertford can be traced to 1090 when the Lady of Ware (Petronilla de Grandmesnil, Countess of Leicester) diverted Ermine Street from the Roman ford to create a High Street and new bridge over the Lea. The bailiff of Hertford tried to destroy the new bridge before it was recognised as part of the King's Highway by Henry III in person. In 1381, during the so-called Peasants' Revolt, 42 prominent Ware townsmen, led by the Vicar, joined others in destroying Hertford Castle, then owned by John of Gaunt. Many inns were established in the High Street, reflecting Ware's importance as a coaching stop on the Old North Road. Chaucer mentioned Ware twice in The Canterbury Tales. The Great Bed of Ware, cited by Shakespeare and other playwrights, was housed in a succession of Ware inns.

Mary I had Thomas Fust burned at the stake in Ware marketplace for refusing to convert to Catholicism.

In the 17th century, Ware became the source of the New River, constructed to take fresh water into London. The Ware Mutiny occurred on 15 November 1647, between the First and the Second English Civil War at Corkbush Field, when soldiers were ordered to sign a declaration of loyalty to Thomas Fairfax, the commander-in-chief of the New Model Army (NMA), and the Army Council. When some with Leveller sympathies refused to do this they were arrested and court-martialled; one of the ringleaders, Trooper Richard Arnold, was shot. 62 children were sent to Ware after the 1666 Great Fire of London. In 1683, the Rye House Plot involved assassinating Charles II after he passed through Ware. It failed.

England's first turnpike (toll) road was established at Wadesmill, two miles north of Ware, in 1633 in an attempt to control the malting traffic into and from Ware. The town had become a major maltmaking centre during the Civil War and soon became the most important supplier of malt to the Common Brewers of London, with its own quoted price on the London grain market, particularly for brown malt, used in brewing porter beer. The Ordnance Survey First Edition of 1880 showed 107 malt kilns in Ware, more than twice as many as in any other Hertfordshire town. The last working malting in Ware, Pauls Malt at Broadmeads, closed in 1994. In November 1999, the bronze Maltmaker statue by Oxfordshire sculptor, Jill Tweed, was unveiled outside St Mary's Church to commemorate the end of the industry and the Millennium. The unveiling was done by Hugo Page Croft, member of a famous Ware malting family; others involved in the project were Guy Horlock, chairman of the Stanstead Abbots maltsters, French & Jupps Ltd, and David Perman, curator of the Ware Museum.

Two legends associated with the 17th century are sometimes mentioned. One is that bargemen born in Ware were given the "freedom of the River Thames" — avoiding the requirement of paying lock dues — as a result of their transport of fresh water and food in during the Great Plague of London of 1665–66. In fact, Ware barges were freed from having to carry a pilot in the Port of London as a result of their relieving the Dutch blockade of the Thames in 1667, by bringing in coal brought overland from the Wash. The other legend is that Ware bargemen brought plague bodies out of London in 1666 and interred them at the Buryfield. The truth is that the Burymead was mentioned as early as 1513 and referred to the present Glaxo site where a number of Roman cemeteries have been found; the Buryfield Recreation Ground was established in 1931 on charity land, the Bell Close, now partly covered by the GSK multi-storey car park.

At the end of the 19th century, malt-making in Ware was joined by two other industries. In 1886, Dennis Wickham, member of a brewing family, established a bottling plant which in 1900 moved to Viaduct Road and became an engineering company. The firm of D. Wickham & Co. became manufacturers of railcars and construction equipment, closing in 1991. In 1898, the pharmaceutical company, Allen & Hanburys, acquired a lease on the Ware corn mill and began building a medicines, dried milk and health foods factory at the nearby Buryfield. A new plant for pharmaceutical research and development was built in Park Road during World War II. Allenburys, as it was known, was merged with Glaxo in 1958 and is now part of GSK plc.