History - Clash of the Titans

More accurately, a clash between two of the richest, if not the two richest, abbeys in the land - St Albans and Westminster. The manor of Aldenham was, according to some sources, granted in the year 785 to Westminster by King Offa. By another charter, dated in the year 959, King Edgar seemed to confirm the same grant, and Edward the Confessor did likewise in 1066.

However, St Albans laid claim to the manor, citing another charter, also from King Offa, in which the said King granted Aldenham to St Albans Abbey, along with many others in the area, viz. Rickmansworth, Batchworth, Watford, Sarratt, Enfield and Stanmore, amongst others.

In 1202 matters came to a head when St Albans asserted that Westminster’s claim to the manor lay in a lease for 20 years which Abbot Frederick of St Albans had granted to Westminster sometime during his Abbacy [from 1064 to 1077], and that at the expiry of the lease, Westminster had refused to return the manor to St Albans. The jury gave a verdict favourable to St Albans, but that did not end the matter. In 1249, the Abbot of Westminster brought a suit against the Abbot of St Albans stating that St Albans had, on Tuesday after Pentecost, taken 15 beasts from their manor of Aldenham and driven them to Parkbury, formerly part of Colney Street, and again on St John’s day in the same year had taken a further three beasts. It was 1256 before agreement was reached, and in the King’s Court both parties agreed to several complicated terms and conditions regarding supervision and control.

One of the conditions was that a gallows should be erected at Keneprowe [Kemp Row] which should be common to both abbots for hanging those condemned. 

Although this should have been an end to the matter, the dispute continued to rumble on and in 1437 another suit was brought regarding the rights of the Abbots of St Albans in Aldenham, the case being eventually abandoned for want of funds. And so it continued until Henry VIII ended the dispute by seizing the Abbey and its lands.

© Philip Eastburn