A Pattern of Building
Written and presented by Alec Clifton-Taylor
3: Saffron Walden , Essex
'In the hands of an expert you can see how good these patterns can really look,' says ALEC CLIFTON-TAYLOR disarmingly, in front of a wall where he's been trying his hand at pargeting. This is a decorative craft achieved by pressing patterned moulds into wet plaster. It's the Saffron Wald en speciality, seen on many of the town's timber-framed houses and particularly on the Sun Inn. In this friendly little town on the border of East Anglia, brick, tile and timber-frame predominate. Apart from the flint of the church, stone only makes its appearance at the nearby mansion of Audley End, completed in 1621. ' For the grandee who built this prestigious house, it just had to be limestone and nothing else. A colossal piece of extravagance.'
Today Saffron Walden is a town with too many pollarded trees and too much traffic, most of which, says ALEC CLIFTON-TAYLOR , should be ' firmly re-routed '.
Film cameraman HENRY FARRAR Film editor MICHAEL GOLDSMITH
Executive producer BRUCE NORMAN Producer DENIS MORIARTY