Head Post Office And Attached Railings

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.