1-7, Village Street

SAFFRON WALDEN

TL53NW VILLAGE STREET, Audley End 669-1/3/348 (East side) 28/11/51 Nos.1-7 (Odd) (Formerly Listed as: VILLAGE STREET, Audley End Nos.1-11 (Odd))

GV II*

Post office, shop and houses. Post office (part of No.1) was once the village school. C19, C20 amalgamation and renumbering (nos 9 & 11 no longer exist). Red brick, peg-tiled roof, decorative shaped barge-boards on N gable ends. Single storey. Street, W elevation, N-S. No.1, C20 door with upper glazing, glazing bars, 3 casement windows with glazing bars, one has original segment head, 3-cant bay window with glazing bars, 2 C20 boarded doors, one with upper glazing and 3 lower panels. Adjacent house, No.3 (but part overlapping with No.1) one and half storey range with 2-storey cross-wing at S end, lower red brick with upper plastered timber framing, remains of early basket pargetting, peg-tiled roof, stack central to street range and small one in internal angle of blocks. Ground floor, 2 hip-roofed C20 canted bay windows, 2-pane shop window and door with 2 upper glazed panels. Above, 3 dormer windows, 2 have double casements, glazing bars, each with 2x4 panes and one is C20 , plain. Cross-wing timber-framed and plastered, upper and lower sliding sash windows. Building line breaks forward. Nos 5 & 7 both 2 storeys, timber-framed and plastered. No.5 has 3 window range mainly with sliding sashes. No.7 has 4 window range, all sliding sashes. Both have 2 boarded street doors, central stack to No.5. S end gable stack to No.7 integrates with C20 end elevation lean-to. No.7 has some early basket pargetting. Rear, E elevation: similar to front but No.5 has C20 gabled single storey addition. No.7 has old, timber-framed, gabled rear wing and pantiled lean-to. INTERIOR: Nos 1 & 3 contain a C16 divided hall with large smoke bay (sooted) surrounding site of present early C17 inserted stack, roll moulded floor joists jointed to similar binding-joist/head beam. Roll-in-hollow moulded wall plate and embattled rail at hall high end also remain. Roof over hall has 2 bays of elegant wind braced side purlin form. Rear, N cross wall of smoke bay has unusual combination of post and braced tie-beam truss with deep arched braces and upper curved braces, as a display feature at the end of the hall. Later in C16 this end was converted into a smoke bay by partial infilling of the hall. To N, remnants of 2 bays with crown-post roof (service end) remain behind paired bay windows. Cross-wing now cleared of early features but side purlins remain on facade.

Listing NGR: TL5248537947