Saffron Walden is a pretty, very pretty little town in Essex where my great-grandparents, Tom and Annie Allen used to live, and where my father was christened. It has been a settlement since the earliest times, way before the Romans came to this island, and by the time the Normans invaded it was already called Walden; it got the Saffron part of its name because saffron used to be grown here, which comes from the stigma of crocuses.
Many years ago, I was staying with my mum Monica’s sister, Beryl and husband Ken; as usual Beryl and I decided we would go off on a jolly jaunt together and decided to go to Saffron Walden; I had visited there as a child but hadn’t been since. Ken knew the town quite well and we asked him what we should visit on our trip.
“Well, obviously you must visit the crocus fields to see where the saffron comes from,” he told us. “Another good visit is the maze – Saffron Walden has a maze. And the third place I’d recommend,” he continued “Is the Tate and Lyle treacle factory.”
Tate and Lyle is a company which processes sugar and makes treacle and golden syrup as well as sugar; I didn’t realise that Saffron Walden was where the treacle came from.
“If you’re lucky, you might get a trip down the treacle mine,” Uncle Ken teased.
Beryl and I set off and soon arrived at Saffron Walden with only a few little deviations. We had a lovely day there but couldn’t find the saffron fields and we guessed that the whole Tate and Lyle connection was one of Ken’s jokes because there was no sign of a treacle factory – and obviously not a treacle mine! We did find the maze, which was not a puzzling labyrinth between tall dark hedges but a turf maze, flat on the ground:
When we got home Ken was chortling because not only was there no treacle mine, but there were no saffron fields either… they had died out in the eighteenth century. We didn’t mind his little joke, we’d had a lovely time.
Last weekend i revisited Saffron Walden with my cousin Carolyn, and once again we had a lovely time, and had a chuckle about Uncle Ken’s joke!
Lois Elsden 