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SAFFRON WALDEN
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales...., by John Marius Wilson. circa 1866
SAFFRON-WALDEN, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district in Essex. The town stands at the terminus of a branch railway of the Great Eastern, 2 miles long from a junction at Wendon, opened in Nov. 1865; ia 1 mile E of the river Granton, and 44½ NNE of London; took the first half of its name from the ancient cultivation of saffron around it, the later part, form the words Weald and Dun, signifying "a forest" and "a hill;" dates from a period prior to the time of Edward the Confessor; was the head of an honour of 118 lordships held, in the 12th century, by Geoffrey de Mandeville; had a castle in Saxon times, rebuilt by de Mandeville, and still represented by the keeps and walls; had also, 1 mile to the west, on the site of Audley-End mansion, a Benedictine priory, founded in 1136 by de Mandeville, made an abbey in 1190, and given at the dissolution to Lord Chancellor Audley; was the scene, in 1252, of a tournament at which Ernauld de Montenai was killed; gives the title of Baron Howard de Walden to the family of Elis; was made a municipal borough by Edward VI.; is governed, under the new act, by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling-place; occupies a hill, encompassed with a valley in the form of a horse-shoe, and surrounded at a distance by pleasant hills; consists of several good streets, with many good buildings; underwent improvement in 1862 by the formation of water-works, by the reduction of the levels of High-street, and by the construction of drainage-works; and has a head post-office, two banking-offices, two chief inns, a neat town-hall, a corn-exchange of 1849 in the Italian style, a spacious market-place, a well-fronted cattle-market of 1834, a public well 1,000 feet deep, a police station, a literary institution, a reading-room and library, a neat lecture-room, a museum, an agricultural hall, a horticultural society, a church, five dissenting chapels, a public cemetery, a grammar-school, national and British schools, a charity school for girls, two suites of endowed alms-houses with £933 a-year, a workhouse, and general charities £440. The church is chiefly of the time of Henry VII.; comprises nave, chancel, and three aisles, with fine clerestory, and very fine oak roof; has a lofty spire of 1831, surmounting an old tower; was extensively restored and altered in 1859-60; has a fine five-light E window, put up in 1866; contains three old brasses, and old monument of Lord Chancellor Audley, and a recent monument to two of Lord Braybrooke's sons, who fell in the Crimean war; and forms a conspicuous object in the view of all the surrounding country. The public cemetery is on the Sewers-End road, about ½ mile from the town; and has two neat chapels. The grammar school was founded about 1500, by the Rev. John Leche, then vicar; had, for a pupil, Sir Thomas Smith, a native of the town and secretary to Edward VI. And Elizabeth; was raised, through his influence, to a royal foundation; has commodious premises in High-street; and an endowed income of £45; and admits, on the foundation, 24 boys, The workhouse was built in 1837, at a cost of £7,500; and has accommodation for 435 inmates. A weekly market is held on Saturday; fairs are held on the Saturday before Mid-Lent Sunday, the Monday after 3 Aug., and 1 and 2 Nov.; and malting and brewing are carried on.
The parish is conterminate with the borough, but it extends much beyond the town, and includes the hamlets of Little Walden, North-End, and Audley-End. Acres, 7,416. Real property, £23,865; of which £200 are in gas-works. Pop. In 1851, 5,911; in 1861, 5,474.Houses, 1,181. The manor belongs to Lord Braybrooke. A curious antiquity, called the Maze, is on a green near the town. There is also an ancient camp, called Pell-Ditches, or Repell-Ditches; the S bank of which is 730 feet long, 20 feet high, and from 50 feet wide at the base to 6 to 8 feet at the top. (Transcriber's note: known as the "Battle Ditches" in the 1950s.) The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £300. Patron, Lord Braybrooke. A chapel of ease is at Sewers-End.
Transcribed by Noel Clark
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