The Saracens Head Public House

The Saracen's Head Public House is a mid-19th century building that has been extended in the late 19th century. It is constructed of yellow stock brick in Flemish bond, with the ground floor featuring orange-red glazed brick also in Flemish bond. The roof is hipped and covered with Welsh slate, and there are yellow brick chimneys topped with oversailing courses and cream terracotta pots.

The building has two storeys. On the first floor, there are three recessed 12-pane sash windows beneath rubbed brick flat arches on the east elevation facing Railway Place, and two more on the Ware Road elevation. The ground floor includes a late 19th-century flat-roofed extension that wraps around the corner, made of red-orange glazed brick. This extension features a moulded cornice, stone coping, and ornamental cast-iron arcade headed plate glass sash windows with stone lintels that have chamfered arrises. There is a 20th-century glazed door and sidelight on the right-hand side of the Ware Road elevation. The Railway Place side has double and triple windows.

The entrance is located on the corner and features a half-glazed door with margin glazing and an arcaded top bar, along with a rectangular fanlight above and an exposed lintel. The fascia displays two modelled swags, flanking pilasters, moulded caps and cornice, and a semicircular brick arcaded upper panel with a modelled and coloured 'Saracen's Head' set against a background of raised scrolled vines, leaves, and grapes. A cast-iron voluted finial sits above.

Inside, there are two bars with a simply detailed central servery and walls with boarded dados. The upper floor has not been inspected.

Historically, the area north of Ware Road began to develop in the 1840s after the opening of the Eastern Counties Station at the head of Railway Place. The Saracen's Head was likely built as a house, but it is shown as a public house on the 1870s First Edition Ordnance Survey map. The front extension was probably constructed shortly after the 1898 updated map, which is the last map on which it does not appear.