St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of

Saffron Walden Saffron Walden is a market town and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. Th ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. It is the largest non-cathedral church in Essex with an overall length of and a spire high, which is the tallest in Essex. It was designated as a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

in 1951.History and Guides
, stmaryssaffronwalden.org, accessed 11/09/2016 A

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

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 Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-ce ...

begun in about 1450, the latter stages supervised by

John Wastell John Wastell ( – 1518) was an English gothic architect and master mason responsible for the fan vaulted ceiling and other features of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, the crossing tower (Bell Harry Tower) of Canterbury Cathedral, and sections ...

, the master mason who was building

King's College Chapel King's College Chapel is the chapel of King's College in the University of Cambridge. It is considered one of the finest examples of late Perpendicular Gothic English architecture and features the world's largest fan vault. The Chapel was bu ...

in the nearby city of Cambridge.Lawrence Gooderham, Don Burn
Illustrated Guide to St Mary’s Church Saffron Walden
stmaryssaffronwalden.org, accessed 11/09/2016 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 A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

was added in 1832 to replace an older "lantern" tower to a design of

Thomas Rickman Thomas Rickman (8 June 17764 January 1841) was an English architect and architectural antiquary who was a major figure in the Gothic Revival. He is particularly remembered for his ''Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture'' ...

and

Henry Hutchinson Henry Hutchinson (16 October 1800 – 22 November 1831) was an English architect who partnered with Thomas Rickman in December 1821 to form the Rickman and Hutchinson architecture practice, in which he stayed until his death in 1831. Hutchinson ...

. Thomas Cornell, progenitor of the American family bearing his name, was baptized in the church around 1592. The Conservative politician

Rab Butler Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politici ...

(1902–82) is buried in the churchyard. He promulgated the

Education Act 1944 The Education Act 1944 ( 7 & 8 Geo. 6. c. 31) made major changes in the provision and governance of secondary schools in England and Wales. It is also known as the Butler Act after the President of the Board of Education, R. A. Butler. Histori ...

References

External links

St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saffron Walden

Saffron Walden

Churches in Uttlesford