Hill House, Saffron Walden Hill House, Saffron Walden 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
Trade and use of saffron flourished in European locations extending from Asia Minor, where it originated, to Saffron Walden in England, where it was naturalised. Only subsequently, when its labour-intensive cultivation became largely centred in Kashmir, did it seem sufficiently exotic to qualify as one of the most precious of spices."Saffron crocus cultivation has long centered on a broad belt of Eurasia bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the southwest to India and China in the northeast. The major producers of antiquity—Iran, Spain, India, and Greece—continue to dominate the world trade. The cultivation of saffron in the Americas was begun by members of the Schwenkfelder