St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden 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 and the spire, 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
Saffron Walden More than 40 maltings stood in the town by the end of the century. The trade was less lucrative than saffron, but the town continued to grow through the 19th century, and had a cattle market, corn exchange and other civic buildings. During this time Quakers became active. The influential Gibsons – one of the founding families of Barclays Bank – aided the construction of several public buildings that remain today, such as the museum and town hall. In the 1900s the Saffron Walden branch railway line from Audley End station, on the mainline from London to Cambridge, was extended