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 County High School Guide ranked the school as the best non-selective state school in East Anglia. In November 2013, the school opened a new "world-class" concert hall dubbed Saffron Hall. The £10m auditorium was funded by the Yellow Car Charitable Trust and replaced the previous main school hall. Saffron Hall won the Project of the Year award at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors East of England Awards 2014. The only cinema in Saffron Walden has operated within the school since 2006. It is a not-for-profit cinema run by volunteer projectionists using both digital projectors and 35mm film. Both Saffron Screen and Saffron