WALTER could not expect to match Æthelwig's experience and aptitude when it came to worldly matters and when he first came to Evesham he also had much to learn about local people and their personal connections. It was almost inevitable that in some respects Walter's abbacy would begin by upsetting them. Matters were especially difficult for him because he had also to contend with the resentment felt by everyone whom Æthelwig had outmanoeuvred to gain estates for the abbey; they nursed a latent bitterness, which Æthelwig's personal authority had forced them to suppress. Among the aggrieved parties the monks of Worcester cathedral priory were the ones most able to put their feelings about Æthelwig into words, and they propagated a story that implied that God shared their hostility towards him. They said that when Bishop Wulfstan heard that Æthelwig was dead his natural charity had moved him to offer prayers for the abbot's soul but that on doing so he had been instantly stricken with the abbot's disease of gout. When Wulfstan's physicians were unable to find a cure, he had resorted to prayer and it was revealed to him one night that it was his praying for Æthelwig that had incurred the affliction. Wulfstan stopped interceding for him and within a few days had completely recovered.

Walter was unable to reverse the local ill-will that Æthelwig's death had released, but his own initial tactlessness made matters worse. Walter had refused to accept as his feudal tenants many of the English people who had commended their estates to Æthelwig's personal protection. Walter did so in order that he could oust the holders and gain unfettered control of their land. Moreover, it was suspected that Walter was acting partly under the influence of young relatives who had followed him to Evesham in expectation of gains for themselves. They were not disappointed, in fact, for in due course Walter would enfeoff his brother Randal, against the monks’ wishes, with the manors of Weethley and Kinwarton in Warwickshire and Lark Stoke in Gloucestershire, and probably with the manor of Abbots Morton near Evesham, as well as with substantial estates at Littleton and Bretforton.