Former Police station including area railings, gateway and walls

Former Police Station

This building on East Street in Saffron Walden dates from 1884 and was completed in 1886. It is constructed of red brick laid in English bond, dressed with stone, and built in Elizabethan style. The front and side elevations are partly decorated with burnt headers in diaper pattern. Some gables feature timber framing and plaster. The building is roofed in clay tiles with crested ridge tiles.

The structure is two storeys with a rectangular plan and short rear end cross-wings. It has prominent stacks and a cornice between floors. A first floor loft extension at the west end, originally built over the carriageway, is now supported by a larger rectangular 20th-century ground floor building.

The south front elevation presents a slightly asymmetrical composition. The doorway is positioned off-centre within a pedimented porch, which is supported by a wall shaped as a Dutch gable. The porch has broad moulded architrave and a pedimented shield above bearing the Essex and Saffron Walden crests. The doorway is round-headed with leaf-decorated spandrels and is dated 1884. It is fully glazed with an inner glass door.

Windows throughout the front elevation have segment heads formed with gauged brick voussoirs. The casements are of cross type with lower additional glazing bars. The central unit contains four ground floor windows and two larger windows on the first floor set beneath gables. To the west is a simple three-light ground floor window. To the east is a doorway in similar style, plastered, set under a segment head with side lights and a 2 x 2 pane upper glazing. A three-light window mirrors the west end. Above the doorway is a two-light first floor window. A large stack with brick corbelled cornice sits at the east end above a crow-stepped gable. Similar stacks appear towards the west end and two further stacks stand centrally behind the roof apex.

At the west end, a tile-hung loft with crested roof tiles and weather vane is set well back over a simple wooden arched carriageway with a two-leaved boarded door. A 20th-century projecting flat-roofed red brick block supports the west end of the loft and contains two two-light casement windows.

The west end elevation features a gable of the street range with the cornice continued. Two facade gables lie adjacent to the north, each with timber, plaster and tile hanging, and each containing a cross window. Two prominent stacks serve the front range and end wing. A central deep flush segment-headed porch with internal steps and an inner arched doorway has cross windows on each side. To the north, the gable end of the deep tile-hung loft has a simple single light window. Below this, the 20th-century block has a small rear extension and three casement windows.

The east end elevation has a crow-stepped gable of the street range with a large external stack with cornice continued. Single light windows sit above each side of the stack. To the north, the wing contains a two-window range of cross style, with only a single window on the first floor set under a projecting tile-hung dormer gable. A large stack is visible on the north gable apex and another behind the roof apex. A side of a ground floor lean-to porch sits at the north end.

The north (rear) elevation shows the principal range and end wings with the loft at the west end. Three intermediate facade gables sit between the wings, inset at the west end. Large stacks serve each wing and three further stacks stand behind the gables. The first floor has windows in irregular grouping of cross and single light types. The ground floor contains a central rail-guarded cell window and a plain door in an inset bay. The east wing gable wall has a hip-roofed porch with two inner doors with four panels, one with upper glazing. The west wing gable wall has one of two originally cross windows now blocked. The loft room has a central framed and boarded two-leaf door and an adjacent four-paned window.

The interior has not been inspected.

FRONTAGE RAILINGS, GATEWAY AND WALLS

The frontage features wrought-iron square section spear-top railings set on a red brick dwarf wall with stone shaped coping. The railings and central two-leaved gateway are decorated with restrained scrolls and leaves. The wall continues on each side in front of the garden to the east and is interrupted to the west, fronting the court. The brick piers have roll-moulded arrises and stone caps.