Saffron Walden railway station

Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, 12 miles (19 km) north of Bishop's Stortford, 15 miles (24 km) south of Cambridge and 43 miles (69 km) north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15,504 at the 2011 census.

Friends' School (known as Walden School from 2016–17) was a Quaker independent school located in Saffron Walden, Essex, situated approximately 12 miles south of the city of Cambridge, England. The school was co-educational and accommodated children between the ages of three and 18 (boarders and day pupils). The school closed at the end of the 2017 summer term.

Walden Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Saffron Walden, Essex, England, founded by Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, between 1136 and 1143. Originally a priory, it was elevated to the status of an abbey in 1190. Soon after its founding, Earl Geoffrey was arrested by King Stephen. When released on surrender of his castles, the earl launched a rebellion that lasted over a year. When he was killed, he had been excommunicated and could not be buried at the priory. Walden suffered without a clear patron through the rest of Stephen's reign. Even when Geoffrey de Mandeville, 2nd Earl of Essex regained his father's title and lands under King Henry II, he did little to assist his father's foundation. Nonetheless, when he died in 1166, his body was taken to Walden Priory for burial despite a suggestion that his mother Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex, send her men to seize her son's body and have it buried in the monastery she had founded at Chicksands.Walden's relations with Geoffrey's brother and heir William de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex were slightly better, although the member of the community who wrote the Book of the Foundation of Walden claimed that Countess Rohese turned him against Walden. On his death in 1189, the monastery was again left without a clear patron for a number of years. The earldom of Essex eventually passed to the husband of a distant cousin of earl William, Geoffrey fitz Peter, along with the patronage of Walden and the Mandeville lands and titles. The monks quarrelled with him, however. The abbey eventually came under the patronage of the Duchy of Lancaster in the later Middle Ages, and thus passed to the crown in 1399.After the dissolution of Walden during the reign of Henry VIII, the abbey property was purchased by Sir Thomas Audley, who built Audley End House there. The current Jacobean mansion was built for his grandson, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, however.

Hill House is a 19th-century building at 75 High Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It is listed Grade II. In 1845, George Stacey Gibson (1818–1883) and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Samuel Tuke, bought Hill House and lived there until their death. Gibson was a British banker, botanist and philanthropist.Their only child, Mary Wyatt Gibson (1855–1934) lived at Hill House until her death. After her death, most of the grounds of Hill House were developed for housing, and the family name lives on in Gibson Gardens, Gibson Way and Gibson Close.The building was listed in 1972 and is now divided into 17 flats.

Saffron Walden Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place, Saffron Walden, Essex, England. The structure, which is the headquarters of Saffron Walden Town Council, is a Grade II listed building.

Barclays Bank, Market Place, Saffron Walden, Essex, England has been designated a Grade II* listed building by Historic England. It was first listed in 1972.It was built in 1874 for George Stacey Gibson, sole proprietor of the Saffron Walden and North Essex Bank, and designed by William Eden Nesfield. It is now a branch of Barclays Bank.

The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in the Market Place in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. The structure, which is currently used as a library, is a Grade II listed building.

Walden Castle was a medieval castle in Essex, England, built during the Anarchy of the 12th century. Only the ruined core of the structure remains today.

Uttlesford is a local government district in Essex, England. Its council is based in the town of Saffron Walden. The district also includes the town of Great Dunmow and numerous villages, including Stansted Mountfitchet, Takeley, Elsenham, Thaxted, and Newport. The district covers a largely rural area in the north-west of Essex. London Stansted Airport lies within the district. The neighbouring districts are Braintree, Chelmsford, Epping Forest, East Hertfordshire, North Hertfordshire and South Cambridgeshire.

St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of Saffron Walden, Essex. It is the largest non-cathedral church in Essex with an overall length of 183 feet (56 m) and the spire, 193 feet (59 m) high, which is the tallest in Essex. It was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1951.A Norman church was recorded in 1130, which in turn had replaced an earlier wooden structure. The building as it currently stands dates predominantly from a rebuilding between 1250 and 1258, with a further rebuilding in the Perpendicular style begun in about 1450, the latter stages supervised by John Wastell the master mason who was building King's College Chapel in the nearby city of Cambridge. In 1769 the church was damaged by lightning. The repairs, carried out in the 1790s removed many medieval features but saved the building which was in a dilapidated state. The spire was added in 1832 to replace an older "lantern" tower to a design of Thomas Rickman and Henry Hutchinson.Thomas Cornell, progenitor of the American family bearing his name, was baptized in the church around 1592. The Conservative politician Rab Butler (1902–82) is buried in the churchyard. He promulgated the 1944 Education Act.

The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. Recognised as an Accredited Museum by Arts Council England, it displays work by artists of national significance who lived or worked in North West Essex during the twentieth century and after. The gallery is known for its comprehensive collection of work by the Great Bardfield Artists, including Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious.

Saffron Walden Town Football Club is a football club based in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. They are currently members of the Essex Senior League and play at Catons Lane.