alleged that again the
word would be hybrid. Yet another derivation which avoids this objection
is the Old English "Rum" from whence we get "room" and if we adopt this
derivation Romsey, or Rumsey as it is still sometimes written and more
often pronounced, would mean the roomy or "Spacious Island." The reader
can form his own opinion as to which is the most probable of these three
suggestions. The writer is inclined to favour the third. But the visitor
who, arriving at the railway station either by the branch line via
Redbridge or by that which runs from Eastleigh, or from Salisbury, or
Andover, proceeds to the Abbey, would not realize when he arrived at his
destination that he was in an island, for the minor streams are not
spanned by bridges, but have been completely covered in and run through
small tunnels beneath some of the streets.

We have no records of Romsey before the original foundation of the Abbey,
nor indeed for many years afterwards. The first authentic mention of the
abbey is found in the chronicle of Florence of Worcester, who died in
1118, and whose work, at least that part of it which deals with English
history, is a Latin translation of the Old English Chronicle. He writes
"In anno 967. Rex Anglorum pacificus Edgarus in monasterio Rumesige, quod
avus suus Rex Anglorum Eadwardus senior construxerat, sanctimoniales
collocavit, sanctamque Marewynnam super eas Abbatismam constituit."[1]

[1] In the year 967, Eadgar the Peaceable, King of the English, placed
nuns in the monastery which his grandfather, Eadward the Elder, King of
the English, had built, and appointed St. Meriwenna abbess over them.

This Eadward, also surnamed the Unconquered, was the son and successor of
the greatest of the Old English Kings, AElfred, and reigned from 901 to
925. Sometime during his reign he founded the Romsey nunnery. There is no
documentary evidence to fix the exact date, but it is generally assumed to
have been 907. It is said that about two centuries earlier there had been
a monastery at Nursling nearer the mouth of the Test, and on the tideway
of the river. It was here that the great missionary to the Germans Winfrid
or St. Boniface had been trained, but it was within reach of the ships of
the Danish pirates, and in 716 they had ravaged it and reduced it to such
utter ruin that scarcely one stone remained on another to mark the site.
This monastery was never rebuilt, and Eadward, probably having its fate in
mind, n