Old Saffron Walden Hospital

Old Saffron Walden Hospital, now used as council offices, was built in 1865 and designed by William Beck. This building showcases a High Victorian Gothic style, constructed from red brick with white brick and stone dressings, topped with a slate roof featuring two 3-course fishscale bands and cresting. It is two storeys tall with attics and has a shallow H plan layout. The central entrance bay projects slightly forward and is flanked by gabled cross-wings and lower gabled wings at each end. There is a single-storey range added to the northeast in the later 19th century.

The front elevation features paired Caernarvon arched windows on the ground floor, with column mullions, and similar single windows on either side of the entrance bay. An open stone porch supported by granite piers has a steeply-pitched stone roof and is flanked by sash windows under pointed stone heads. A stone sill band runs along the first floor, which is decorated with a red and white brick band and a similar cornice band. The building has white brick quoins and the central bay is topped with a pavilion roof adorned with a decorative iron balustrade. It also features a large gabled wall dormer with a stack at the apex and a 3-light pointed window with plate tracery beneath a decorative brick arch. A plaque at the eaves level reads 'S WALDEN HOSPITAL'.

On the first floor, there are paired round-headed sashes under pointed stone arches, with column mullions, flanked by brick and stone cartouches inscribed '1865'. The corners are half hipped with paired 2-light sashes under pointed heads. The cross-wings have pointed 3-light first floor windows with plate tracery and decorative brick arches, while other first floor windows feature round-headed sashes under stone arches. The end wings and rear also have similar traceried first floor windows, with other windows being sashes with stone lintels. The rear elevation is mostly hidden by later 19th-century additions.

Inside, the entrance hall has a 3-bay limestone arcade with carved capitals, and a 2-centred stone arch over the entrance with carved imposts. The staircase features pierced balusters and an open timber roof, with carved stone corbels throughout.