Essex and Suffolk Fire Office is a Grade II* listed building in the Colchester local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 February 1950. Office. 2 related planning applications.
Essex and Suffolk Fire Office
- WRENN ID
- under-brass-smoke
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Colchester
- Constituency
- Colchester MP: Pam Cox (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 24 February 1950
- Type
- Office
- Address
- Essex and Suffolk Fire Office, 157, High Street, CO1 1PG
- OS grid reference
- TL 994 252
- Coordinates
- 51.88978, 0.89682
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is an early 19th-century neo-classical building, originally built as a Corn Exchange in 1820 by David Laing. It was later used by the Essex and Suffolk Fire Office and Equitable Insurance Office. The building is now three storeys high, originally two, with a central pediment and smaller open pediments at each end of the front elevation. It has a nine-bay range of double-hung sash windows with glazing bars; the ground-floor windows have arched heads. A prominent feature is the colonnade of nine pairs of cast-iron Greek Doric columns that projects across the pavement. The arcade behind the columns was enclosed and remodelled in the late 19th century and again in 1966 with plate glass. The building forms a group with numbers 156 and 158 High Street, and the Albert Hall.
Local climate
Essex and Suffolk Fire Office sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 670 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 99% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 51% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 18 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 83% of listed buildings. Of these, 9 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 2010
- Related listed building consents — 2 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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