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 (horse) badly in the straight, finishing tailed off last of the nine runners behind Royal Anthem. Saffron Walden was off the course for eleven months before returning for his first and only appearance as a four-year-old in the Minstrel Stakes over one mile at the Curragh on 16 July 2000. Ridden by Seamie Heffernan he finished third of the six runners behind the tree-year-old colt Shibi. At the end of his racing career Saffron Walden was sold for an undisclosed sum and exported to become a breeding stallion in Japan. He returned to Ireland in 2005 and was based at the