Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford, Oxon.
A walk through the streets of the old town is refreshing to an antiquary's eyes. The old stone buildings grey with age with tile roofs, the old Tolsey much restored, the merchants' guild mark over many of the ancient doorways, the noble church with its eight chapels and fine tombs, the plate of the old corporation, now in the custody of its oldest surviving member (Burford has ceased to be an incorporated borough), are all full of interest. Vandalism is not, however, quite lacking, even in Burford. One of the few Gothic chimneys remaining, a gem with a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, was taken down some thirty years ago, while the Priory is said to be in danger of being pulled down, though a later report speaks only of its restoration. In the coaching age the town was alive with traffic, and Burford races, established by the Merry Monarch, brought it much gaiety. At the George Inn, now degraded from its old estate and cut up into tenements, Charles I stayed. It was an inn for more than a century before his time, and was only converted from that purpose during the early years of the nineteenth century, when the proprietor of the Bull Inn bought it up and closed its doors to the public with a view to improving the prosperity of his own house. The restoration of the picturesque almshouses founded by Henry Bird in the time of the King-maker, a difficult piece of work, was well carried out in the decadent days of the "twenties," and happily they do not seem to have suffered much in the process.
The George Inn, Burford, Oxon
During our wanderings in the streets and lanes of rural England we must not fail to visit the county of Essex. It is one of the least picturesque of our counties, but it possesses much wealth of interesting antiquities in the timber houses at Colchester, Saffron Walden, the old town of Maldon, the inns at Chigwell and Brentwood, and the halls of Layer Marney and Horsham at Thaxted. Saffron Walden is one of those quaint agricultural towns whose local trade is a thing of the past. From the records which are left of it in the shape of prints and drawings, the town in the early part of the nineteenth century must have been a medieval wonder. It is useless now to rail against the crass ignorance and vandalism which has swept away so many irreplaceable specimens of bygone architecture only to fill their sites with brick boxes, "likely indeed and all alike."
Itineraries of the Georgian period when mentioning Saffron Walden describe the houses as being of "mean appearance,"[16] which remark, taking into consideration the debased taste of the times, is significant. A perfect holocaust followed, which extending through that shocking time known as the Churchwarden Period has not yet spent itself in the present day. Municipal improvements threaten to go further still, and in these commercial days, when combined capital under such appellations as the "Metropolitan Co-operative" or the "Universal Supply Stores" endeavours to increase its display behind plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems painfully insecure.
A good number of fine early barge-boards still remain in Saffron Walden, and the timber houses which have been allowed to remain speak only too eloquently of the beauties which have vanished. One of these structures—a large timber building or collection of buildings, for the dates of erection are various—stands in Church Street, and was formerly the Sun Inn, a hostel of much importance in bygone times. This house of entertainment is said to have been in 1645 the quarters of the Parliamentary Generals Cromwell, Ireton, and Skippon. In 1870, during the conversion of the Sun Inn into private residences, some glazed tiles were discovered bricked up in what had once been an open hearth. These tiles were collectively painted with a picture on each side of the hearth, and bore the inscription "W.E. 1730," while on one of them a bust of the Lord Protector was depicted, thus showing the tradition to have been honoured during the second George's time.[17] Saffron Walden was the rendezvous of the Parliamentarian forces after the sacking of Leicester, having their encampment on Triplow Heath. A remarkable incident may be mentioned in connexion with this fact. In 1826 a rustic, while ploughing some land to the south of the town, turned up with his share the brass seal of Leicester Hospital, which seal had doubtless formed part of the loot acquired by the rebel army.
The Sun Inn, or "House of the Giants," as it has sometimes been called, from the colossal figures which appear in the pargeting over its gateway, is a building which evidently grew with the needs of the town, and a study of its architectural features is curiously instructive.
The following extract from Pepys's Diary is interesting as referring to Saffron Walden:—