Description

SAFFRON WALDEN

TL53NE ASHDON ROAD 669-1/4/11 (East side (off)) 28/11/51 St Aylotts

I

House. Built c1500. Moated and apparently built by Walden Abbey. Red brick, timber frame rendered with combed pargetting, peg-tiled roof. Rectangular plan. 2 storeys. The house is a very complete medieval building with easily recognisable units. It comprises brick ground floor with diaper decoration in burnt bricks with timber-framed first floor jettied on all 4 sides. All windows now, except 2, are casements, mainly C20 and all have inserted timber lintels but partly made up with some earlier units. E front elevation: prominent jetty bressumer has rolled leaf and roll in cavetto mouldings, corner angle posts recessed into brickwork, dragon beams with leaf decorated brackets. Central front doorway of clunch, repaired, on site of cross-entry, cavetto and roll moulded with label, now with C19 flush boarded door. To S, original window aperture of hall, moulded and plastered with brick label, clunch window surround, now with 3-light casement. Late C19 spur wall with lean-to roof to S for passageway to outbuilding (qv). Simple boarded house door, 2-light casement. Brick semi-octagon newel stair tower partly rebuilt to square. 3-cant solar bay window under jetty, partly clunch, repaired, lancets, 1:4:1, diagonal brick corner buttress. N of central doorway, 2 casement windows 3 and 5 lights for buttery and kitchen areas, inserted doorway with timber lintel, simple boarded door. First floor, S end blank, centre and N end, three 2-light casements and one 3-light. Kitchen stack at N end, top rebuilt in C19, inserted C19 smaller stack over junction of buttery and kitchen. Rear W elevation: 2 large identical stacks with upper stepped stage and pair of conjoined diagonal shafts (partly rebuilt) at centre and S ends for hall and solar rooms. To N, gabled 2-storey brick and timber stair/garderobe tower at buttery/kitchen junction, with large upper fixed 2x3 casement window and lower blocked round headed aperture. To N, original kitchen doorway with double chamfered brickwork and 4-centred arched head with C19 boarded door. At SW corner, diagonal buttress. Projecting jetty bressumer along elevation, mainly undecorated except at N and S ends where decoration returned round corners. Ground floor window between stacks, slightly projects, moulded brick sill and straight wall joints of larger,elaborate window originally for hall, now 4-light casement. N of hall stack is 4-light casement ahd 2-light casement in original chamfered brick aperture. N end, 3-light window along rest of range. S end elevation: ground floor diagonal buttresses to corners, off-centre repaired 3-light clunch window, 2-centred heads. Moulded bressumer repaired with simple boarding. First floor, central 3-light casement with glazing bars, 6x3 panes. N end elevation: dominated by projecting stepped stack, repaired with upper section rebuilt. INTERIOR: although partly re-partitioned the medieval lay-out is clear, with large buttery and kitchen units requiring the cross-entry to the hall to be roughly central to the whole range. Ground floor ceiling joists moulded, mainly rolls. Joists in service rooms though only chamfered. Solar stair tower has original lower clunch and upper oak-block newel steps also original clunch doorway and boarded door with fleur-de-lys strap hinges. One doorway re-sited, originally between hall and solar has shell decorated spandrels. Lateral hall fireplace in clunch, flat 4-centred arch, cyma and hollow chamfer moulding. Kitchen fireplace mantle beam is 5m long. First floor, original passage partition along range on E side with 3 original richly moulded doorways with decorated spandrels giving acces from newel stair to high end rooms. At N end, passage turned to meet stair tower with 3 similar doorways to chambers over service rooms. Great chamber at S end has elegant fireplace with moulded brick jambs and embattled timber lintel continuing moulding. Big deep window sills imply oriel windows originally. First floor wall framing internally braced with internal recurved stud bracing. Wall plates have edge-halved and bridle-butted scarfs. Roof large, 8 and a half bays, trusses have upper and lower wind-braced butt side-purlins. Also low queen posts with rear crossed bracing, high collar with upper X bracing. Common rafters over purlins. HISTORICAL NOTE: this high level building may have been an upland retreat for the Walden Abbey community. The evidence of very ample and richly decorated first floor accommodation and spacious service provision including a very large kitchen fireplace suggest the presence of a number of people at one time. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Ratcliffe E: Essex: London: 1965-: 337; Hewett C: English Historic Carpentry: Chichester: 1980-: 218).

Listing NGR: TL5695539918

External Links

• Wikidata Q17539554

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Recommended Books

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)