Saffron Walden (UK Parliament constituency) It borders Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, and also extends deep into the middle of Essex near Chelmsford. Three medium-sized market towns, Saffron Walden, Dunmow and Halstead are in the constituency. All three have historic links, and are busy and regionally visitor-drawing towns in the South East. The largest single source of employment in the constituency is Stansted Airport, while there are also a host of small businesses, many of them high-tech, along and at the ends of the London-Cambridge corridor. The constituency consists of Census Output Areas of two local government districts with similar characteristics. Uttlesford district forms the bulk, and
St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden 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. St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of Saffron