Saffron Walden silver maces were bought by the corporation in 1549 to commemorate the granting of a new town charter by Edward VI. This purchase is recorded in the town's Guild of Holy Trinity accounts and reads, ""For 2 new maces, weying 18 ownces one quarter and half at 8s. the ownce 7l.7s"". The 12th-century Walden Castle, built or expanded by Geoffrey de Mandeville, the first Earl of Essex, is in ruins. After the medieval period, the castle fell into disuse and much of the flint was taken and used in the construction of local houses and the wall surrounding the Audley
1901 Saffron Walden by-election the Conservative Party in the 1900 general election, which was dubbed the Khaki election. But what had at first been seen as a brief Imperial engagement turned slowly into a protracted and bloody conflict. Opposition to the War was strengthened by the use of concentration camps by the British Army against the Dutch civilian population. This policy was eventually characterised by Liberal leader Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as ‘methods of barbarism’. Gray was determined to play the khaki card again and held a meeting at Saffron Walden Town Hall on 29 May 1901 with the Marquis of Graham and D J