Sparrows Charity

Sparrows Charity, Church Street, Saffron Walden

A timber-framed house of considerable age and complexity, combining 15th-century origins with significant rebuilding and additions spanning the 16th, 17th, 20th and 21st centuries. The building is rendered with a peg-tiled roof and red brick stacks, arranged in an L-shaped plan with one and a half storeys and an attic.

The front (north) elevation comprises two conjoined single-window range units of one and a half storeys, with the western unit lower due to the downhill slope. Both contain sash windows with 3x4 panes. The eastern sash, dating to around 1800, retains a moulded architrave, while the western sash is early 20th-century work. Two gabled dormer windows sit above, one in each unit. The eastern dormer, dating to around 1900, features guilloche-decorated barge-boards and an inner tie-beam with leaf decoration, finial and pendants; it contains a 3-light casement window with central glazing bars and 3x2 panes. The western dormer is simpler, with a 2-light casement window of 2x2 panes. An exterior brick stack stands at the east gable end.

The east side elevation runs north-south. The street range terminates in a gable end south of the stack, with a ground floor sash window of circa 1800 matching the front elevation. An attic floor window of 3x4 panes dates to the 20th century. To the south stands a shaped 20th-century brick wall forming the side of a conservatory-style rear addition with a garden entry porch containing a 2-light casement window with 2x2 panes and glazing bars.

The rear wing comprises two timber-framed units, the northern taller than the southern. Both underwent complete 20th-century refurbishment. A stack stands at the junction. The ground floor features a house door within a porch, its upper portions glazed with shaped heads and stained glass; a sash window with glazing bars and 3x4 panes; and a long window comprising four conjoined sash window units with glazing bars totalling 12x4 panes. The first floor of the southern unit contains two 2-light casement windows, each 4x3 panes. Two gabled dormer windows crown the rear wing. The northern dormer, serving the upper half-storey and set within dropped eaves, holds a sash window with glazing bars and 3x4 panes. The southern dormer is a standard gable with a 2-light casement window with 2x2 panes and glazing bars. The street unit behind to the east has a first floor 20th-century 3-light casement window with 3x2 panes and glazing bars, and a 20th-century porch door with upper glazing.

The south rear elevation shows the gable end of the wing with an old side purlin visible. The ground floor features a 2-leaf French window fully glazed with 4x5 panes; the first floor has a 2-light casement window with 4x4 panes and glazing bars.

The west side elevation has an attic floor 3-light casement window with 3x2 panes and glazing bars (20th-century). Below sits a partial ground floor 20th-century brick lean-to with peg-tile roof and a small further lean-to at the south end wall. The southern timber-framed wing has a ground floor 20th-century double sash window with glazing bars totalling 6x4 panes. At the south end, a brick unit features a 2-leaf fully glazed stable-type door, a boarded door, and a 2-light casement window with 2x2 panes and glazing bars.

Interior

Four timber-framed units are clearly distinguishable: two in the street range and two in the rear wing.

The street range's western end of the larger (eastern) unit preserves the upper end bay of a high-quality 15th-century open hall. This space features a moulded tie-beam and a four-way braced crown post roof. Both the tie-beam and wall plates display bowtell in great casement moulding; the tie-beam also bears a cyma below. Spandrels descending to arched braces are finished as chamfered 'mullion'-form spandrel struts. The truss is cut through at the south end for a doorway. The front wall plate shows an interrupted stopped chamfer marking the position of the mullions of the principal four-light hall window facing the street. Below this, the ground floor cross wall to the west (at the junction of the two units) represents the high end of the open hall; its infilling has been removed, but the framing of studs and chamfered rail retains wall painting featuring a deep red background with hollow-sided hexagons in black with white borders, alternating with paired interlinked bell-flowers (possibly representing the saffron crocus). The low end bay of the hall shows only basic framing now.

The western units behind the painted wall were entirely rebuilt with separate framing. Within the 17th-century rear wing is a late 16th or early 17th-century doorhead of four-centred profile, its spandrels decorated with shields and 'jewelled' ornament. This doorhead was relocated from the surviving street hall bay and, as positioned, is out of its original medieval context. The house was probably remodelled around 1600, the doorhead inserted, and the hall divided by an inserted floor. A dormer window was added to the street range at this period in contemporary style and renewed around 1900 with similar decoration. Twentieth-century restoration required the rebuilding of the south end of the southern wing; this section now contains reused roof rafters employed as floor joists.