Aiming at the environmental property and damage mechanism of ancient adobe buildings, the material components, compressive strength and freezing-thawing resisting performance of ancient adobe bricks were tested and analyzed. Based on test data, the power function relation between nondestructive rebound value and compressive strength of adobe bricks was established, and the nonlinear correlation curve between mass loss rate and freezing–thawing cycles of adobe bricks was also determined. The study shows that the compressive strength of ancient adobe brick is greater than that of adobe in traditional rammed earth wall, and ancient adobe brick is inferior to fired brick at the waterproofing quality and freezing resisting performance, it needs to adopt surface waterproofing measures for ancient adobe buildings to improve the resisting capacity to environmental erosion.