9, MARKET PLACE (See details for further address information)

No. 9 Market Place, Saffron Walden (also including No. 10 Emson Close)

A timber-framed and plastered building with a peg-tiled roof, dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries with 19th-century refenestration, a rear addition, and 20th-century refurbishment. The building is L-shaped, comprising two storeys with a cellar.

The west elevation facing Market Place was refurbished in the 20th century with panel fan combed pargetting. The doorway has a cornice hood with plain jambs, door, lower panels and upper 2x3 glazed panels. Beside it stands a bowed shop window on a central bracket, with a plain fixed casement to the north. First-floor windows are sashes with flush frames and 3x2 panes.

The north elevation to Emson Close is similarly refurbished. The gable of the street range gives way to a long rear range with a projecting gabled stair tower. A large projecting early 17th-century shouldered red brick stack dominates, with rebuilt 18th and 19th-century upper stages. A shallow stepped lean-to addition extends from the west gable to ground and first-floor level. The ground floor has a plain doorway with glazed metal door, a 3-light casement window with glazing bars (6x3 panes), and an adjacent fixed casement (2x3 panes). The first floor has a 19th-century sliding sash window (6x2 panes) and a 19th-century 3x3 paned sash window. The stair tower features a late 19th-century sliding sash window (2x2 panes) above a lower fixed paned window. At the east end, a felt-roofed lean-to with fully glazed door and overlight is adjacent to a mid-hung casement window (4x3 panes). A red brick garden wall with short slated inner lean-to curves around the south elevation.

The east elevation shows a gable end of the 17th-century wing, jettied to the south. The ground floor is partly obscured by the curved wall; a low 20th-century 2-light casement window is visible. The first floor has an early 20th-century 3-light casement with leaded glazing. Wall plates and roof side purlins project.

The south elevation comprises a 2-bayed long jettied range with exposed principal bracketed joists and a covering 19th-century fascia board. The ground floor has a long 19th-century sliding sash window with glazing bars (6x3 panes). The first floor has 19th-century casement windows: one 3-light and one 2-light.

The interior reveals partly exposed framing in both units. The western range of two bays was originally jettied to the street. The principal binding joist has a lamb's tongue chamfered stop. The rear eastern wing, also two bays, contains studding with internal nailed tension bracing at the east end and blank apertures for an original frieze window on the east and south walls. A halved and bridled scarf joint appears in the wall plate. The ground floor room has early 17th-century paired bridging joists with lamb's tongue chamfer stops. The stack on the north side features a ground-floor fireplace with jambs and timber lintel rebuilt in the 20th century, though the herringbone brickwork at the back is original. The first-floor fireplace has a moulded brick surround with roll and hollow chamfers and a flattened depressed arched head.

The building exemplifies the late medieval and post-medieval expansion typical of town properties. The earlier range, parallel to the street, probably originally contained a shop with a chamber above. The expansion to the rear of the plot in fashionable style features a display window, stair tower, and large stack heating two floors, with a fireplace serving the upper chamber.