25 And 27, Church Street

SAFFRON WALDEN

TL5338 CHURCH STREET 669-1/1/110 (South side) 28/11/51 Nos.25 AND 27

GV I

House and store, once part of the Sun Inn, which included Nos 29 & 31 Church Street (qv) and 17 Market Hill (qv). C14, alteration and decoration C17, restored C19. 2 storeys. Timber-framed, plastered and elaborately pargetted, peg tile roof. H plan of hall house with jettied cross-wings. Front, N elevation: similar to Nos 29 & 31 in that it was considerably re-worked in the late C19, windows and doors were remade in Tudor style. All windows have casements with intersecting cast-iron, hexagonal latticed glazing bars as a building style. Roofs were re-raftered with side purlins and new barge-boards. Elaborate late C17 pargetting. Central hall range with low cross-wing (probably service) to E and tall cross-wing to W, upper floor raised in C17, (by the time of the pargetting) to create a carriageway below. E cross-wing and hall both have a ground and first floor window of 3 lights with cast-iron latticed panes. Also, each has a boarded, battened and studded door. Cross-wings show original jetty joists, carriageway has 2 leaved door, framed and boarded with upper spikes. Whole frontage pargetted with bold figure work on first floor including volute scrolls, pecking birds, a stocking and the well known pair of fighting men, one holding a club and the other a sword, said to be the Wisbech Giant and Tom Hickathrift, an E Anglian carter. Rear, S elevation: hall and cross-wing units visible. Two C19 stacks, one to rear of hall range, the other on E side of E cross-wing, single first floor window in each gabled end. W, double casement window in all, 4x2 panes. E, single casement, 2x2 panes, ground floor hall and E cross-wing units have a C19 yellow brick lean-to with slate roof, doorway segment headed to carriageway, yard on W side. INTERIOR: plain, medieval construction not visible. Roof space, E cross-wing has a crown-post whose collar purlin has a splayed scarf joint, crown-post has 4-way braces that are lodged and nailed to the crown-post, a C14 technique. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Ratcliffe E: Essex: London: 1965-: 337).

Listing NGR: TL5379838572