Places of Interest
The medieval Waltham Abbey Church is now used as the parish church. In addition there are a few other remains of the former abbey – the gatehouse, a vaulted passage and Harold’s Bridge – all in the care of English Heritage.
Waltham Abbey is notable for the reputed grave of Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Also in the town, housed in a building dating back to 1520, is the Epping Forest District Museum, which tells the story of the people who have lived and worked in this part of south Essex from the earliest times to the present.
On the site of a former gunpowder factory another museum illustrates the evolution of explosives and the development of the Royal Gunpowder Mills (an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage) through interactive and traditional exhibitions and displays. The site hosts living history and battle re-enactment events most summer weekends and also offers a self-guided nature walk that shows visitors the ecology that has reclaimed much of the remaining 175 acres (0.71 km2).
The former gravel pits in the Lea Valley and parts of the former Abbey Gardens are now in the care of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority for recreation use and nature conservation.
The Epping Forest Conservation Centre in High Beach provides information, maps, books, cards, displays and advice for visitors to the area.
Read more about this topic: Waltham Abbey (town)
Famous quotes containing the words places of, places and/or interest:
“As Jerome expanded, its chances for the title, “the toughest little town in the West,” increased and when it was incorporated in 1899 the citizens were able to support the claim by pointing to the number of thick stone shutters on the fronts of all saloons, gambling halls, and other places of business for protection against gunfire.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In many places the road was in that condition called repaired, having just been whittled into the required semicylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog’s back with the bristles up.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any effort in philosophy to make the obscure obvious is likely to be unappealing, for the penalty of failure is confusion while the reward of success is banality. An answer, once found, is dull; and the only remaining interest lies in a further effort to render equally dull what is still obscure enough to be intriguing.”
—Nelson Goodman (b. 1906)