Chigwell

Chigwell, a parish and residential district in the Epping parliamentary division of Essex, England; with stations (Chigwell Lane and Chigwell) on two branches of the Great Eastern railway, 12 m. N.E. from London. Pop. (1901) 2508. The old village church of St Mary, principally Perpendicular, has a Norman south door. The village lies in a branch of the Roding valley, fragments of Hainault Forest lying to the south and east, bordering the village of Chigwell Row. The village of Chigwell appears in the Domesday survey. The pleasant scenery of the neighbourhood, which attracts large numbers both of visitors and of residents from London, is described in Dickens’s novel, Barnaby Rudge, and the King’s Head Inn, Dickens’s “Maypole,” still stands. The old grammar school, founded by Samuel Harsnett, archbishop of York (d. 1631), whose fine memorial brass is in St Mary’s church, has become one of the minor modern institutions of the English public school type. William Penn attended school at Chigwell from his home at Wanstead.