Grab your running gear, Kevin Henry takes you on a 5 minute sprint around the town

The town of Saffron Walden offers residents and visitors a wealth of interesting buildings reflecting the styles and needs of the town over the centuries. Timbered houses are highly prized and now command the highest values. The 'folk art' which is so visible in the turf maze on the Common carries through with the pargeting – patterns and/or figures formed into the external render of the building, quite common in Essex – that appears on many buildings. The most famous of which is the Sun Inn on the corner of Market Hill and Church Street with its connections to Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army. Areas of the town which during bad times had deteriorated into slum, namely Castle Street and its various Courts and Yards that sprung up to house the poor, are now considered some of the most desirable houses in the town – Saffron Walden's 'Chelsea' if you like – and the areas favoured by the rich: West Road, High Street, London Road, Audley Road, Borough Lane and Mount Pleasant Road all include fine examples of the building styles of their respective periods.

In recent years, Saffron Walden has grown with the development of modern family style homes of three or four bedrooms which have been developed around the centre of the town. Early development included Newport Road, West Road, Victoria Avenue, Debden Road, Springhill and Summerhill Roads, all now very desirable properties enjoying large gardens typical of the time. During the 1960s and 70s Saxon Way, Gibson Way, Gibson Close and Gardens, Farmadine, Longhedges, Lambert Cross, the Rylstone Way development and Rowntree Way with its many adjoining roads such as Loompits Way, Maypole Close and the gloomily named Gallows Hill have all matured as the leafy suburbs of the town. More recently, development on a larger scale has been carried out in the Cromwell Road, Ross Close, Winstanley Road area to the south of the town centre and to the north Goddard Way, Morris Harp, Shrublands and the many smaller roads that form the development have become established and provide very desirable family homes for those who work in the town and beyond.

Prestigious new developments like Lord Braybrooke Gardens have recently been finished with the area around the old Station building transformed with two and three-storey dwellings in a Georgian style with private landscaped gardens. Low maintenance 'wharf style' apartment blocks have replaced dilapidated commercial premises at Saffron Court, Custerton Court and Audley Court and are in great demand for those who require troublefree living with all the services. The Maltings in the High Street is another good example of apartment living well done. Nearer to town, Edward Bawden Court, accessed via Park Lane and the High Street, blends in well with its surroundings and offers town centre living with private and communal gardens. And you wouldn't know Castle Court at the top of the Common – developed in the early '80s – existed except for the road sign, with its high walls and mature trees.

Refurbishment has always created new housing opportunities and the Award winning ‘Raynhams’ that replaced the old Raynhams Garage in the High Street is a fine example. Tall it is, intrusive it is not. Modelled on the oast houses that once occupied the site, the apartment and house mix blends in well with its surroundings with sympathetic use of brick and render to create a seemless join with the existing buildings that line the High Street. Recent development in Church Street continues the theme with its three storey houses lining the road, it used to be commercial buildings – unattractive ones – so the change has improved the street enormously.

The same could be said of change generally in Saffron Walden, growth and development have been kind to the town over the centuries and it has become one of the places to live in the south-east with its motorway and rail links into London; its proximity to the hi-tech industries of Cambridge and the international airport links provided by Stansted Airport just 15 miles down the road.

If you are making a trip to Saffron Walden to view a property offered by Kevin Henry Estate Agents, or just having a look before you decide, there is one thing we can be pretty sure of, you will not have a wasted trip – people come back to Saffron Walden.

© Anthony Marcos Limited