Dolphin House

Dolphin House comprises two houses, each with a shop, located on Gold Street in Saffron Walden. The building dates from the 16th century but was substantially refronted around 1700, with further early 19th-century alterations and additions.

The structure is timber-framed with plaster and brick, roofed with peg and clay tiles and slate. It adopts an L-shaped plan with two storeys and attics throughout.

The east-facing front elevation displays a 4-window range. The southern section (No.6) has a long jettied upper storey, while the northern end (No.6A) features a flat facade with a less tall but slightly higher eaves line. A modillioned eaves cornice with pargetting runs across, with a bressumer to the central two bays bearing a wave motif decorated with fruit, flowers and leaves. Above this sits a central square panel with strap-work derived outline enclosing a dolphin, with pricked decoration scattered across the rest of the frontage.

At ground floor level, No.6 contains a 19th-century doorway with moulded architrave and four-panelled door to the south, followed by two similar 19th-century shop bay windows beneath the jetty, simply restored in the past, standing on brick bases with 4x3-paned windows. Segment-headed cellar openings appear below, one blocked and the other fitted with a grating. Three principal jetty joists are visible, the central one still bearing its support bracket. The north end of No.6 features an early 20th-century shop front with decorative stops to the fascia board and a fully glazed recessed doorway. The first floor contains an early 20th-century two-light casement window with arched heads and stained glass toward the south, followed by three 19th-century sash windows with moulded architraves. Hip-roofed dormer windows in each of the two northern bays contain two-light casements with 2x2 panes.

The west-facing rear elevation shows a two-storey timber-framed and plastered rear addition to the street range (No.6), gabled with a first-floor 20th-century French window, fully glazed. Below stands a flat-roofed extension with two 20th-century casement windows of one and two-light respectively. To the north, a slated ground-floor lean-to features a 19th-century full-width three-cant bay window with sashes having glazing bars of 2x4, 3x4, and 2x3 panes, and a slated roof. A stack rises behind through the street range roof pitch, with another in the north side of the two-storey addition. To the north (No.6A), a tall two-storey 19th-century brick addition with deep eaves and slated hipped roof connects to the scheme. At ground floor, a 19th-century French window with overlight of 4x1 panes and door leaves totalling 4x3 panes with lower boarding are present. A large semicircular early 19th-century canopy with a tented copper roof supported on six cast-iron stanchions with wrought-iron leaf decoration stands in front. The first floor features a 4x4-paned sash window. On the south elevation of this wing, the ground floor displays a 4x4-paned sash window with thin glazing bars and stucco voussoir. The first floor contains a similar window and another now altered in the 20th century to casement type, alongside a 4x2 casement window and a small two-light window. The north elevation is blank.

The interior of No.6 reveals framing considerably obscured by later work. On the first floor, jowled posts and a central studded partition are visible, with a tie-beam bearing mortices for an earlier attic floor now exposed. The attic retains a simple crown post roof with a partition carried up from below. The north end was rebuilt to accommodate an attic ceiling. The south end of the original house is visible approximately 2 metres to the north of the present termination, marked by the width of the south doorway entrance below.

No.6A contains post-medieval framing with early 19th-century details including a central well stair with mahogany handrail terminating in a volute, stick balusters, and ornamental tread ends with bracket supports. The front ground floor room features two arched recesses. Ground floor doors are decorated with reed moulding and rosettes.