Public Library

The building is a mid-19th century literary and scientific institute, now serving as a public library. It is located on King Street in Saffron Walden. The exterior is a combination of stucco and ashlar, topped with a slated, hipped roof featuring a cornice supported by closely spaced consoles. The plan is rectangular.

The south-facing front elevation has five bays. The ground floor consists of a Tuscan arcade of two central attached columns and outer pilasters, with a frieze that includes lower, interrupted rock-faced rusticated panels. Four ground floor windows have round heads; their archivolts feature triple stepped keystones. The windows are plain, horned sashes. A doorway is located within a similar arcade bay on the west end, featuring a strigillated frieze and an overlight with mid-19th century ironwork grille. The original six-panel door has the upper two panels recessed and the lower four panels with beaded mouldings. The first floor has round-headed windows matching those below, connected by cornices at the sill and impost level with recessed panels between the windows. The window arches have deep, slender keystones, and the outer openings are blind with hollow splayed reveals. The three central windows are sashes with glazing bars, arranged in a 3x2 pane pattern, and with additional radiating bars to the heads.

The north-facing rear elevation is constructed of grey gault brick. It comprises two storeys and two units positioned to the west of a three-window ground floor range. Large sashes with 3x4 panes are located on this elevation. A return wall has two similar windows. The first floor features a single, central, segment-headed window of two sash lights with glazing bars, arranged in a 4x4 pane pattern. To the east, a lower two-story block contains a central 20th-century plain door with upper glazing on the ground floor and a casement window on either side. The first floor has a segment-headed casement window with 2x3 panes.

The interior stairway ascends from a narrow passage behind the front door. The principal first-floor room contains a fireplace made of grey marble and pink breccia, with a dentilled cornice and a frieze ornamented with urns, rams' heads, and oval paterae, alongside fluting inlaid with yellow marble. The street-facing windows have architraves with Ionic mouldings. A large, two-leaf panelled door connects to a rear room where the original ceiling is obscured, though it was reportedly originally lit by a central lantern.