Bishop's Stortford

Bishop's Stortford is an historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the M11 motorway and Stansted Airport, 28 miles north-east of Charing Cross and 35 minutes by rail from Liverpool Street station. The town had an estimated population of 41,088 in 2020. The district of East Hertfordshire, where the town centre is located, was ranked as the best place to live in the UK by the Halifax Quality of Life annual survey in 2020.

The origins of the town's name are uncertain. One possibility is that the Saxon settlement derives its name from 'Steorta's ford' or 'tail ford', in the sense of a 'tail', or tongue, of land. The town became known as Bishop's Stortford due to the acquisition in 1060 by the Bishop of London.

The River Stort is named after the town, and not the town after the river. When cartographers visited the town in the 16th century, they reasoned that the town must have been named after the ford in the river and assumed the river was called the Stort.

Little is known of Stortford until the Roman era, with the evidence being small archaeological finds. Limited evidence of ancient Mesolithic and Microlithic peoples in the form of flakes, cores and an axe have been found on the Meads and Silverleys respectively. Most Bronze Age evidence is from the neighbouring parish of Thorley to the south as opposed to Stortford proper, but a 3,000 year old socketed spearhead has been found at Haymeads Lane within the town. Evidence of settlement has been found on Dunmow Road dating from the Middle Bronze Age through to Romano-British times. In Bishop's Stortford: A History, Jacqueline Cooper concludes "existing evidence suggests that the Stortford area was settled only sparsely in prehistoric times, and nearby places like Braughing and Little Hallingbury were of more importance."

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. None of the excavations has shown evidence of the Roman fort which likely existed in Stortford. The settlement was probably abandoned in the 5th century after the break-up of the Roman Empire.

Following the end of the Roman era, a new Anglo-Saxon settlement grew up on the site.

However, little is known about Stortford until the 1060s with the evidence becoming much stronger after the Norman Conquest. In 1060 when William, Bishop of London, bought Stortford manor and estate for £8, leading to the town's modern name. By 1086, the motte-and-bailey Waytemore Castle had been built as a local strongpoint for the area. It acted as a centre for defence and civil administration for roughly 125 years before it was dismantled but not destroyed by King John in 1211. Rebuilding of the castle started the following year at John's expense, and John stayed the night in the castle in 1216. By the 15th century, the castle had fallen into disrepair, and the Bishop's Court (one of the administrative structures for the area) moved to Hockerill, to the east of the town.

At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the village had a population of around 120, and grew to around 700 by the 13th century.