The bustling train lands the visitor at Waltham Cross Station, in the county of Herts, and one must proceed for about a mile on foot eastward to attain the Abbey and town of Waltham Holy Cross, which lie in the adjoining county of Essex. But after the “mean things that are new” have been passed, the way is pleasant. The road is bordered on one side for a goodly distance by the marshlands and crosses many times over the river Lea, which, as old Fuller humorously observes, “not only parteth Herts from Essex, but also seven times parteth from itself, and is crossed by so many bridges.” Beyond the waterside inn on the bridge that spans the Lea navigation, and displays the comforting sign of the “Old English Gentleman,” Highbridge Street is entered, and the old town opens out, with the tower of the Abbey, but just restored to its original dignity of design, closing in the view. The principal entrance to the Royal Gunpowder Factory lies just to the left here, and much that is picturesque and quaint will strike an observant eye on the way. The diversity in character and style of the houses and shops, the irregularity of their disposition, with their time-tinted exteriors, and the bits of garden and splashes of verdant foliage, which break up the line of bricks and mortar, timber and stucco, give the old street that peculiar charm which is so often characteristic of an ancient town. Romeland. Just before the Abbey is reached, approached by a way that allows little more room than is needful for a cart to pass, is an open square of very old houses, a most picturesque corner of the old town, that bears the somewhat curious appellation of Romeland. {12} How and why the place came to be so called it is not easy to determine; but the abbots of Waltham, whose seat was at Copt Hall, had their London house on or adjacent to a site in the parish of St. Mary-at-Hill, adjoining what is now Billingsgate Market, which was also called Romeland. To the rent of this, as well as the market square at Waltham, the Pope laid claim, and the latter was then known as Romescot or Peter’s Piece. It is to this circumstance, probably, that the place owes its name. It was in the house of Master Cressy, a long-fronted structure, which stands on the left of the entrance to Romeland, that, in 1533, Cranmer, Fox, and Gardiner discussed the question of Henry’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Then it was that Cranmer “struck the keynote of the Reformation,” by claiming “for the Word of God that supremacy which had been usurped by the popes for centuries.” Fuller refers to this as a significant circumstance and says: “Thus did Waltham give Rome the first deadly blow in England.” A King’s Diversions.