STANSTEAD, a town in the hundred of Braughen, and county of Hertford, sixteen miles from London. It stands in a valley near the river Lea, two miles from Hoddesdon. In this parish is the Rye-house, remarkable for the supposed plot in the reign of Charles the Second, for the assassination of that monarch. The population was, in 1801, 861; in 1811, 832; in 1821, 950; and in 1831, 966.