Saunders Almshouses

Saunders Almshouses is a block of four almshouses located on Flamstead High Street, built in 1669 for Thomas Saunders of Beechwood. The building was reconditioned in 1952, during which a rear outshut was rebuilt. It features narrow dark red brick in an early use of Flemish bond and has a steep old red tile roof. This single-storey block consists of two pairs of almshouses facing south.

There are two large shared internal chimneys symmetrically placed on the ridge, each with two conjoined lozenge-shaped diagonal shafts topped with corbelled caps. The gable parapets are moulded brick with square piers that have ball finials at each apex, and above each corbelled brick kneeler. The south front has four windows and two pairs of round-arched chamfered brick doorways opposite the chimneys. The windows are recessed, square-headed, two-light with chamfered brick jambs and mullions, previously plastered to resemble stone, and feature leaded glazing in renewed metal frames. The doors are made of oak planks.

The brickwork is of excellent quality, with a bull-nose plinth and a brick eaves cornice with a frieze. Moulded brick corbels support the gable kneelers. Above the western pair of doors, there are two large rectangular stone panels that may have once displayed armorial bearings. A stone located just beneath the central datestone may have had an inscription that is now illegible. Each single-cell house was intended for a poor married couple, with the entrance located at the jamb of the fireplace. A beam runs from the front to the back of the building, and there is a flat-roofed continuous rear outshut constructed in red brick.