Saffron Walden
The picturesque medieval town of Saffron Walden is situated in the heart of some of the finest rolling countryside of Essex. It is a small country market town with early origins, the name Walden meaning "valley of Britons".
During the Middle Ages, the growth of the East Anglian cloth industry had an impact on the town. The nearby abbey kept flocks of sheep and it was at about this time that the name Saffron was added to Walden when it became the major English centre for the production of the Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus). The saffron was used to produce dyestuffs for the cloth trade, food colouring and medicine. Notable residents of the town included Gabriel Harvey, an Elizabethan poet and astrologer, Henry Winstanley, who built the first Eddystone lighthouse in 1699, and the Gibson family.
Prominent Quakers, the Gibsons started in Saffron Walden as brewers but eventually formed the Gibson Bank (the founding company of the present Barclays Bank).
Saffron Walden was designated a Conservation Area in 1968 and there are some 400 buildings in the town of special architectural or historic interest and much care has been taken to conserve the historic character of the town centre which has retained the original medieval layout.
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