72, High Street

This is a house dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries. It is located on the High Street in Saffron Walden. The front of the house is built of red Flemish bond brick, while the rear is of white gault brick and some timber framing. The front range has a roof of plain tiles, with a hipped end, whereas the two rear ranges have a Mansard slate roof and a hipped slate roof with a wide eave overhang. The house has two storeys and a cellar, with a complex internal layout.

The front elevation features a high parapet with a central projecting panel containing a recessed panel. Rubbed brick quoins run the full height of the building on both sides. A moulded string band sits below the parapet. The first floor has five recessed double-hung sash windows with twelve panes each. The ground floor now has two later canted bay windows with pilasters between double-hung sash windows to each side which have a central vertical glazing bar and moulded cornice. A slightly projecting door surround is rusticated with rubbed brick Doric pilasters and includes a central rendered panel with a triple keystone. The door itself has two glazed panels over four moulded recessed panels. There are five stone steps leading up to the front door, featuring wrought-iron curved handrails, and two cellar vents are visible. A large brick stack on the rear wall of the front range has diagonal shafts, most of which have been rebuilt. The rear elevation incorporates a two-storey rectangular bay window from the early 20th century and a lean-to dormer with an eight-pane horizontal sliding sash. A small-pane tripartite double-hung sash window is on the first-floor of the projecting hipped wing, alongside a 20th-century conservatory on the ground floor. The rear garden is enclosed by tall red brick garden walls.

Inside, the central entrance hall features a segmental rear arch and a side niche with serpentine shelves. The doors have a mix of moulded reeded surrounds with floral corner motifs. The front windows have internal folding shutters. Some rooms have fireplaces with reeded dentillation in the ground floor south room and an Adamesque fireplace in the north room. There are raised and fielded panel doors and simple moulded cornices throughout the main rooms. The main staircase has a straight flight with cast-iron decorative newels, a segmental landing with stick balusters, and a hardwood handrail. A service staircase, partly spiral with vase-shaped columns and balusters, leads down to a curved brick entrance to the cellar. The first floor originally comprised an enfilade of rooms and panelled walling on the inside face of the front facade. The south room in the main range has a fireplace with a panelled overmantel, eared architrave and a bed recess under an elliptical arch. Reused 17th-century panelling is also present in the north room. Behind the front block is a 17th-century timber-framed range, with a large stack featuring semicircular side recesses to a ground-floor fireplace, a mantel beam, and a fragment of moulded brick recess in the rear of an opening.