Essex And Suffolk Fire Office

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.