On a hill above the church there are some traces of an
Iron Age hill fort, but more substantial remains of the earthworks were destroyed by landscaping of the Old Vicarage gardens in about 1840. To the west, on the road to
Hertford, is a large
tumulus at Barrowfield. In the
Domesday Book of 1086 Great Amwell and neighbouring
Little Amwell were a single parish recorded as "Emmewell". By the 17th century, the name of the village was recorded as Amwell Magna, Much Amwell or Great Amwell. The
Church of England parish church is a medieval building dedicated to
St John the Baptist. The
nave and
chancel date from the 11th century with a
Norman chancel arch. A
bell tower was added in the 15th century and the building was
restored in 1866. It is a Grade II*
listed building. The
stocks in the churchyard date from the 17th or 18th century and were moved there from behind the George IV pub in 1887. The
East India College was founded at the hamlet of Hailey to the south of the parish in 1806, for the education of young men intended for the civil service of the
East India Company in India. It was built in the
neoclassical style to the design of
William Wilkins. When the company was abolished in 1858, the buildings were briefly used as a
barracks by the army, but were converted into a
public school,
Haileybury College, in 1862. ==Governance==