Saffron Walden Essex Family History Guide
Saffron Walden is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Essex.
Other places in the parish include: Little Walden, North End, and Audley End.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1558
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1800
Nonconformists include: General Baptists, Independent/Congregational, Particular Baptist, Primitive Methodist, Society of Friends/Quaker, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Wendens Ambo
- Debden
- Little Chesterford
- Great Chesterford
- Radwinter
- Newport
- Wimbish
- Hadstock
- Ashdon
- Littlebury
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
SAFFRON-WALDEN, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Essex.
The town stands at the terminus of a branch railway of the Great Eastern, 2 miles long from a junction at Wendon, opened in Nov. 1865; is 1 mile E of the river Granton, and 44½ NNE of London.
It took the first half of its name from the ancient cultivation of saffron around it, the latter part, from the words Weald and Dun, signifying “a forest” and “a hill;” dates from a period prior to the time of Edward the Confessor; was the head of an honour of 118 lordships held, in the 12th century, by Geoffrey de Mandeville; had a castle in the Saxon times, rebuilt by De Mandeville, and still represented by the keeps and the walls; had also, 1 mile to the west, on the site of Audley-End mansion, a Benedictine priory, founded in 1136 by De Mandeville, made an abbey in 1190, and given at the dissolution to Lord Chancellor Audley.
It was the scene, in 1252, of a tournament at which Ernauld de Montenai was killed; gives the title of Baron Howard de Walden to the family of Ellis; was made a municipal borough by Edward VI.; is governed, under the new act, by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 councillors.
It is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling-place; occupies a hill, encompassed with a valley in the form of a horse-shoe, and surrounded at a distance by pleasant hills.
It consists of several good streets, with many good buildings; underwent improvement in 1862 by the formation of water-works, by the reduction of the levels of High-street, and by the construction of drainage-works; and has a head post-office, two banking offices, two chief inns, a neat town hall, a corn exchange of 1849 in the Italian style, a spacious market-place, a well-fronted cattle-market of 1834, a public well 1,000 feet deep, a police station, a literary institution, a reading room and library, a neat lecture-room, a museum, an agricultural hall, a horticultural society, a church, five dissenting chapels, a public cemetery, a grammar-school, national and British schools, a charity school for girls, two sites of endowed alms-houses with £933 a year, a workhouse, and general charities £440.
The church is chiefly of the time of Henry VII.; comprises nave, chancel, and three aisles, with fine clerestory, and very fine oak roof; has a lofty spire of 1831, surmounting an old tower; was extensively restored and altered in 1859-60; has a fine five-light E window, put up in 1866; contains three old brasses, an old monument of Lord Chancellor Audley, and a recent monument to two of Lord Braybrooke’s sons, who fell in the Crimean war; and forms a conspicuous object in the view of all the surrounding country.
The public cemetery is on the Sewers-End road, about ½ a mile from the town; and has two neat chapels.
The grammar school was founded about 1500, by the Rev. John Leche, then vicar; had, for a pupil, Sir Thomas Smith, a native of the town and secretary to Edward VI. and Elizabeth; was raised, through his influence, to a royal foundation; has commodious premises in High-street; and an endowed income of £45: and admits, on the foundation, 24 boys.
The workhouse was built in 1837, at a cost of £7, 500; and has accommodation for 435 inmates.
A weekly market is held on Saturday; fairs are held on the Saturday before Mid-Lent Sunday, the Monday after 3 Aug., and 1 and 2 Nov.; and malting and brewing are carried on.
The parish is conterminate with the borough; but it extends much beyond the town, and includes the hamlets of Little Walden, North-End, and Audley-End. Acres, 7, 416. Real property, £23, 865; of which £200 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 5, 911; in 1861, 5, 474. Houses, 1, 181.
The manor belongs to Lord Braybrooke. A curious antiquity, called the Maze, is on a green near the town. There is also an ancient camp, called Pell-Ditches, or Repell-Ditches; the S bank of which is 730 feet long, 20 feet high, and from 50 feet wide at the base to 6 or 8 feet at the top.
The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £300. Patron, Lord Braybrooke.
A chapel of ease is at Sewers-End.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Administration
- County: Essex
- Civil Registration District: Saffron Walden
- Probate Court: Court of the Commissary of the Bishop of London (Essex and Hertfordshire Division)
- Diocese: Pre-1846 – London, Post-1845 – Rochester
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1847 – Sampford, Post-1846 – Saffron Walden
- Poor Law Union: Saffron Walden
- Hundred: Uttlesford
- Province: Canterbury