Army And Navy Stores

The Army and Navy Stores is a shop and office building located on High Street in Saffron Walden, dating from the late 16th century. It features a timber-framed structure with exposed framing and render, topped by a gabled clay plain tile roof that includes a gabled rear stair tower. The building has two storeys with attics and one gabled dormer on the front.

The first floor showcases contemporary frieze windows, each consisting of five lights with moulded mullions, positioned beside a former oriel window, which still shows the mortices for brackets and square sides. The oriel has been replaced by a 20th-century three-light painted casement window with leaded lights. A moulded bressumer is visible, supported by two original jetty brackets. The ground floor features reversed old storey posts with outward-facing jowls, flanking a modern shopfront with a brick stall riser. There is also a small window with rectangular leaded lights and a door leading to the offices above. Above the shopfront, a frieze of plasterwork, created from a cast of old pargetted decoration, depicts birds and foliage.

The rear elevation is picturesque, featuring a two-phase brick stack next to the stair tower and another gabled dormer. The building retains its late 16th or early 17th-century timber frame, with 'A' frame side purlin trusses and an old staircase, possibly from the 17th century, located in the rear tower. Additionally, there is a cupboard with old panelling used as doors.