LAIGHTON, (Essex) or LOW-LAYTON, 5 m. E. from London, has antiquities, such as urns, &c. which shew it was a Roman station. Here was formerly a ford over the r. Lea, till Maud, wife to K. Hen. I. having narrowly escaped being drowned, as she passed it, caused the stone-bridge to be built a little lower at Stratford-le-Bow, to whose abbot and convent the p. Ch. was formerly given; but after the Diss. the manor with the rectory and advowson of the vicarage was granted by Hen. VIII. to Tho. Wrothesley, Ld. Chanc. of England; from whose family it passed to Capt. Swanley. Here is an almsh. for 8 poor people, erected by Mr. John Smith, of London, merchant and a ch. sc. The late Sir Fisher Tench, Bt. erected a seat at Laighton-Stone in this p. which the D. d'Aumont, the French ambassador at this court in 1711, said was the neatest box he had seen in England. Sir John Strange has a seat at Laighton-Grange.