Former Post Office

Former Post Office

This post office was built in the early 1880s and heightened in 1909 by C Roper, who was probably also responsible for the addition of the rear wings around the same period.

The building is located in a terrace of commercial buildings facing south-east onto London Road North. The front range is faced in ashlared limestone with stone dressings, whilst the rear ranges are constructed of gault brick laid in Flemish bond with brick and concrete dressings. The roofs are clad in artificial slate.

The three-storey building has a five-bay symmetrical façade in the Renaissance style with a high stone plinth. The roof is hidden behind a parapet of alternating panels and vase-shaped balusters (the latter aligned with the windows) and has a wide modillion eaves cornice. On the ground floor, the bays are divided by paired square pilasters with plain capitals and bases which support a frieze and a moulded, dentilled cornice. On the frieze, "VR POST OFFICE VR" is carved in incised lettering. Each bay has a tall, square-headed aperture in a moulded architrave. The three central bays are lit by windows (not original, and currently boarded up), whilst the outer bays contain doors with dentilled cornices and large square overlights (not original). The door in the first bay is double-leaf with six moulded panels; the door in the fifth bay is boarded over. The mechanisation for a cash point is below the window in the central bay. To the far left an additional narrow bay has a tall three-light window, again not original. The upper floors are lit by tall, square-headed windows with two-over-two pane horned sashes in moulded architraves. Those on the first floor have a reprise and moulded pediments, whilst those on the second floor have eared architraves, a large square keystone and aprons with guttae. The central bay of the upper floors is flanked by pilasters, their capitals embellished by graceful stone carvings in the form of a female head, a pair of fishes and stylised acanthus leaves. The narrow bay to the far left is lit by two narrow windows with two-over-two pane sashes.

The subsidiary rear elevation and wings are of gault brick with a brick cornice and are divided into bays by plain brick pilaster strips. They are mostly lit by pairs of tall windows in wooden frames with horned sashes, each half divided by a horizontal glazing bar. The windows have a mixture of wide concrete lintels and flat, gauged brick arches. The ground floor of the rear elevation has been partially knocked through to allow for a glazed link. The shorter south-west wing contains the staircase and is slightly higher under a flat roof.

The interior has undergone considerable modifications over the years and retains few historic fixtures and fittings. The ground floor of the front range (the original early 1880s single-storey post office) has a prominent moulded and dentilled wooden cornice which is mostly obscured by a suspended ceiling. The upper floors (added in 1909) have less elaborate moulded cornices as well as transverse chamfered beams with a simple roll moulding. Screens with panelling below and glazing above, divided by wooden glazing bars, run along the rear length of the range creating a corridor with access to partitioned rooms along the front. These screens with double-leaf doors were added later, probably around the interwar period.

The south-west rear wing contains the stairwell with a dogleg stair rising up to the third floor. It has cast concrete steps, two iron stick balusters per tread, and a round, fluted newel post. The longer north-east wing contains the strong room on the ground floor with a series of safes, the doors of which have all been removed. The second floor is one long open space, formerly heated by several fireplaces with simple, moulded timber surrounds.