45 and 47, Castle Street

This is a late 15th-century house, now divided into two separate units, located on Castle Street, Saffron Walden. It’s timber-framed and plastered, with a peg-tiled roof and a red brick stack. The original plan was U-shaped, consisting of a principal block with a later rear addition.

The front elevation features a continuous jetty linking it to the jetties of the adjacent houses, with two jetty brackets. There are two simple, flush-panelled street doors set within plain frames at either end of the facade. The windows consist of two ground floor and two first floor openings, each with moulded architraves, horned sash windows with glazing bars in a 3x4 pane pattern. Remnants of pargeting remain on number 45. A central stack is set within the front roof pitch. To the rear, a simple ground floor addition extends from number 45 at a right angle, with a single-pitch slated roof. Number 47 has a full-width, L-shaped slated lean-to, where a first-floor window from the original house is partly clasped by the added roof pitch. This window comprises two casements, one with leaded panes and the other with three simple panes. A first-floor window on number 45 has three lights, casements with a single glazing bar, amounting to six panes overall.

The interior of number 47 reveals heavy ground floor ceiling joists with central tenons and housed shoulders. There is a rear stair trap alongside a three-light window with mullion mortices and a shutter groove. A secondary stair trap is located at the front of the ceiling. First-floor window shutter grooves indicate the original window positions on both the front and rear. A rear wall plate features an edge halved and bridled scarf joint. The east end wall is not consistent with a closed frame but rather indicates the house was built abutting number 49. The roof is of a simple crown post design, with plaster partitions in the central bay around the site of a later stack. Sooting within the central bay suggests the location of an original open hall. Evidence suggests the continuous jetty is a later addition, and the house originally had a ‘Wealden’ form with a continuous eave and a recessed, short, single-bay length hall. The roof construction connects to that of numbers 41 and 43, also Wealden houses, indicating that the original junction between the two units was likely within number 43. This suggests number 45 was originally large enough to encompass a full, storeyed end bay. The cross-entry passage was probably undershot within the original storeyed bay of number 47. The abutting of number 47 against number 49 implies the entire run from numbers 47 to 41 is part of a single build, and is later in date than numbers 49 to 51, which is another Wealden house.