1, Abbeygate Street

This building on Abbeygate Street is a timber-framed and rendered building society office, originally a shop with living accommodation above. It dates from the late 15th century, with extensions to the rear (north) in the early 16th century. It was restored in 1988, when the current shop fronts were installed. The roof is slated and features ornamental crest tiles. The gable end facing south has 19th-century pierced bargeboards and a spike finial.

The exterior is two storeys with an attic and a cellar. It has a single window range and occupies the south end of an island site between Skinner Street and The Traverse. The upper floor was originally jettied on all three sides, and most of this jettying has been reinstated, with the bressumer (a projecting beam) re-faced in 1988. At the gable end, both the bressumer and the mid-rail have embattled decoration. The corner posts from the original structure survive, supported on 19th-century cast-iron columns encased in timber. The shop front has a central recessed doorway. A six-panel sash window is at the first floor level, and another at attic level. The side facing The Traverse has a projecting addition with a shop front and three six-pane sash windows on the upper floor. The frontage on Skinner Street features a small section of jetty with the original moulded and embattled bressumer and one original bracket. Three sash windows are visible on the upper floor here.

Internally, the original building consists of three bays with a one-bay addition to the north. The earlier phase displays heavy close studding, most notably in the front bay on the upper floor where it has been left exposed. One wallplate retains an edge-halved and bridled scarf with undersquinted butts. Originally, the upper windows had spandrels and moulded mullions, but evidence of these is largely concealed now. The front bay was partitioned off on both floors; the first-floor partition, with the remnants of tension braces, is largely intact. The ground floor ceiling in the front bay features chamfered dragon-beams and heavy plain joists. Similar joists in the other bays are now concealed. A 17th-century upper ceiling is also present in the front bay. The earlier work is roofed with a plain crown-post roof with two-way bracing, while the roof over the rear bay was renewed in the 19th century.

A cellar is located beneath the entire building, mostly with 20th-century rendering, but with some fragments of flint and old brick visible. A small projecting section at the corner of Abbeygate Street and The Traverse is constructed with two courses of large ashlar blocks with flint rubble above and below, and a low arched roof of Tudor brick.