Jubilee House

Jubilee House is a house, now divided into two office units, located on Hill Street in Saffron Walden. The building dates from around 1720, with major rear and side additions made around 1850 and a lesser addition from the 20th century. It is constructed in red, brown and gault brick with slate roofs, planned as an L-shape with three storeys and two storeys in different sections, and cellars beneath.

The front elevation presents a principal unit of six bays and three storeys with a flat facade in red brick with burnt headers and ruddled mortar, tuck pointed. String courses run between the floors, and the roof is hipped with a modillioned eaves cornice. End stacks at east and west are built in brown and red brick. The main doorway sits in the third bay from the east, crowned with a cornice hood and framed by flat Tuscan pilasters with an ornate frieze. The overlight features glazing bars decorated with a circle. Windows have rubbed brick voussoirs and are sashes, with 3x4 panes on the ground and first floors and 3x3 panes on the second floor. Cellar grilles flank the doorway on either side.

To the north is a 19th-century, two-storey single-bay addition in nearly identical brickwork with a parapet and string course. The ground floor holds shop windows and a door, refurbished in the 20th century with reeded pilasters and corner paterae framing. The first floor has a 3x4-paned sash window matching the house style.

The rear (south) elevation reveals two distinct units. The street-range unit has a full-height projecting stair tower at its east end and a 19th-century canted bay window extending through three storeys to the west, both now tile-hung in 19th-century style. The angle between the units is enclosed by a 20th-century ground floor addition through which passes a 19th-century cast and wrought-iron tented canopy beneath the bay window, now copper-sheeted in the 20th century. Behind this lies a 19th-century French window with margin glazing. Above are first and second floor sash windows with 3x4 panes, with further single windows on each storey between the canted bay and stair tower, and another in the tower itself. The 20th-century addition features fully glazed French windows and two 20th-century sash windows.

The second rear unit is a 19th-century L-plan addition butted against the stair tower, built in gault brickwork with bands between floors. Door and window openings have round blind arched keystoned heads, all stuccoed. The doorway holds a two-leafed door with upper glazing and margin lights, partly blocked. Above sits a bull's-eye window with a swinging casement. Three ground floor windows are present: two with two-light casements (4x4 panes) and one replaced in the 20th century with 2x2 panes. A large 19th-century triple sash window with glazing bars displays 1x4, 3x4, 1x4 panes. The first floor has three 20th-century two-light casement windows and one four-light metal casement.

The east elevation's 19th-century north end comprises three bays in red brickwork matching the front but decorated with Gothic mouldings of roll and hollow chamfer. A prominent exterior stack with buttresses dominates. The ground floor holds two segment-headed windows—one of 3x4 panes and one plain. The first floor has three segment-headed windows; two flank the stack with paired lancet lights beneath a four-centred arched head, while one to the north is a simple sash. A door of four flush bead-moulded panels sits on the north side of the stack. To the south is a 19th-century red brick two-storey service range with a central hip-roofed stair wing projecting east. A first-floor balcony with decorative cast-iron railings adorns the north side of the wing. A seven-window range, mostly sashes with segment heads, displays 3x4, 4x4 and 5x4 panes. The stair window in the wing is a sash of 3x6 panes; the ground floor holds a tripartite window of 1x4, 3x4, 1x4 panes. Two ground floor windows in the wing are blocked. The west end elevation features a central stack with two elliptical-headed two-light casement windows on the ground floor, a single second floor 18th-century sash window of 3x3 panes, and two 20th-century fire-doors.

The interior contains a very complete early 18th-century stair of dogleg open string design with three turned balusters to each tread and carved tread brackets. The fluted Corinthian newel posts have shaped handrails ramped to the posts and wreathed at the base. A similar dado with fielded panelling continues above. Rooms of the house are also 18th-century panelled. The 19th-century addition at the north end includes a first-floor room (to street) with a Gothic moulded plaster ceiling featuring tierceron ribs springing from leaf corbels. Two large back-to-back kitchen fireplaces occupy the ground floor of the service wing. Cellars run beneath the 18th-century range and part of the 19th-century unit. In the northeast section, ground floor joists are exposed; these are oak with diminished haunched soffit tenons undisturbed, and a long bridging joist displays lamb's tongue chamfer stops.

The house likely replaces an older building (possibly early 17th century), as evidenced by the survival of the floor, the position of the excellent stair in the rear tower, and the asymmetrical siting of the front street door.