The history of Effingham
January 3rd, 2007The name of Effingham is thought to derive from AEFFING (or YFFINGHAME) (son of YFFE), who was given the land by the first king of the South Saxons about 493 AD.
The first documentary evidence of Effingham was around 200 years later, 674 AD, when the Venerable Bede relates that Erconwald had founded a monastery at what is now known as Chdefrtsey, and that Bishop Frithwald, Viceroy of Surrey, had granted to the abbey 20 dwellings in “Bocham cum Effingham”. In the Danish wars of 871 the Abbot and monks were killed, the Abbey burnt and the lands laid waste. The Abbey was refounded in 933 and the grant of Effingham and Bookham, among other places, was confirmed by King Athelstan in the same year.