Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town about 25km south of Cambridge and 55km north of London. It still has many very old buildings dating from the medieval period.

There has been a village on or near the site of present day Saffron Walden since Bronze Age and Iron Age tribes settled in the area. The Romans also settled there. After the Romans left, an Anglo-Saxon town eventually grew up here. After the Norman invasion of 1066, a stone church was built and the castle was built about 1116. Next to the town, a Priory, later to become Walden Abbey, was founded around 1136...