Head Post Office and Attached Railings is a Grade II listed building in the Sheffield local planning authority area, England. First listed on 28 June 1973. Post office. 8 related planning applications.
Head Post Office and Attached Railings
- WRENN ID
- stubborn-rampart-yarrow
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Sheffield
- Constituency
- Sheffield Central MP: Abtisam Mohamed (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 28 June 1973
- Type
- Post office
- Address
- Head Post Office and Attached Railings, Fitzalan Square
- OS grid reference
- SK 357 873
- Coordinates
- 53.38225, -1.46454
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Head Post Office, built in 1893 with an addition in 1910, stands on Fitzalan Square, Sheffield, designed by J Williams. It is constructed of ashlar stone with ashlar and granite dressings, featuring slate roofing with a hipped roof to the main block and a slate mansard roof to the 1910 addition. The building is in a Free Classical style.
The main block is three storeys plus attics, with seven bays. The recessed central section has twelve-pane sash windows; the ground floor windows have balustrades, pediments, and keystones. A giant order of engaged Ionic columns rises to a pulvinated frieze and dentilled cornice, topped with a pierced balustrade. The attic storey has similar sash windows divided by pilasters. Flanking the central section are heavily rusticated entrance bays with dentilled cornices and half-round pediments. The first floor has a twelve-pane window flanked by eight-pane windows, separated by paired Doric columns, above which is a segment-headed tripartite window within the pediment. A coved round-arched entrance is topped by a scrolled keystone, fronted by a portico with blocked granite columns and a dentilled cornice, above which sits a Diocletian window. A round corner tower to the right is crowned with a dome supported by consoles, and features banded lower stages with stepped eight-pane stair windows with cornices. The right return has a bay similar to the entrance bays, with a ground-floor transomed Diocletian window.
The 1910 addition is three storeys plus attics, with ten bays, featuring twelve-pane sashes with moulded surrounds, cornices, and ornamented keystones on the ground floor. It has a pulvinated frieze and dentilled cornice, with box dormers including nine-pane sashes, and a string course and moulded cornice.
An attached wrought-iron railing sits alongside corniced ashlar piers. An entrance bay on the right has a Diocletian window to the ground floor. The interior features a marble-panelled main hall with an enriched cross beam ceiling and cornice. There are doorcases with dentilled cornices, and a cantilever stone spiral stair with a wrought-iron balustrade.
Local climate
Head Post Office and Attached Railings receives an average of 890 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 65% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 53% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 39 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 76% of listed buildings. Of these, 21 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 — 5 transactions since 2015
- Related listed building consents — 8 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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