58, Abbeygate Street

This is a two-storey house and shop, originally dating from the early 16th century, with alterations in the 17th century and a 20th-century restoration of the front. The building is timber-framed and rendered with a plaintiled roof featuring pierced ornamental ridge-tiles and ball finials, topped with two steep gables facing the street.

The building has an L-shaped plan with a narrower rear range aligned north-south. The western gable is wider than the eastern, both featuring plain bargeboards. The front has a three-window range consisting of small-paned sash windows set within cased frames in shallow reveals; there is a similar window in each gable. A late 20th-century shop front is present.

The rear range was originally jettied on two sides and was underpinned with 19th-century red brick before being rendered externally. The joist ends, moulded embattled bressumer, and corner post of the jetty are still visible. The corner post is elaborately carved with traceried designs to the shaft and blank shields on the curve of the top. It features a capital depicting a figure, seemingly a centaur, with a man's head wearing a head-dress with an eagle. This figure is accompanied by two other figures: a bearded and cloaked man with bare feet and legs, and another figure seated and playing a portable organ. These carvings are slightly damaged and may illustrate a portion of the legend of Hercules.

The front range has no exposed original features, and the cellar is entirely modernised. The vestigial side-purlin roof is visible. The rear range has exposed timbers throughout the ground and first storeys, with main beams featuring crenellated brattishing and a frieze of florets alternating with trade emblems and lettering. Decorative brackets with carved spandrels rest on moulded, crenellated capitals; crocketed shafts run down the main posts. Ogee-moulded joists are present with good close-studding. The roof structure is noteworthy: the main beams of the upper ceiling are morticed into the sides of the main posts below wall-plate level, causing the walls to rise into the attic. The roof contains an arched-brace collar truss with an associated collar-purlin.