King Edwards Buildings (Post Office)

Post Office, built between 1907 and 1911, by Sir Henry Tanner of the Office of Works, with principal assistance from Sir Richard Allison. This building is a prominent example of free classical architecture constructed from Portland stone on a granite plinth. The structure has an east front, and north and south returns. The building is four main storeys high, with an attic largely set back behind a balustrade, and with cornices at the first and third floors. The east elevation is nine bays wide, featuring flanking open arches containing the royal arms. The ground floor throughout is arched and rusticated, with paired Doric columns on high bases in the central five bays. The end bays contain entrances to the post office, accessed through straight-headed doors with Gibbs surrounds within the arches. Above these doors are round windows with blocked surrounds, at third-floor level. The second and seventh bays slightly project and have rusticated quoins, rising into pedimented features at the fourth-floor level. The rear elevation is roughcast and mainly non-load-bearing, featuring round-headed windows on the ground floor. The building’s structural frame is reinforced concrete, constructed using the Hennebique system and licensed to L. G. Mouchel and Partners. It is contemporary in date and structure with the adjacent sorting office behind numbers 106-113 Newgate Street – the two buildings are connected by a high-level bridge. The interior of the main post office comprises a long office space, three bays deep and seven bays wide, with two rows of six reinforced concrete piers faced with veined marbles, supporting concrete beams sheathed in plaster. The ceiling is divided into panels by the beams and is richly ornamented with swags and corbels at the head of the piers. The long sides of the office have lugged windows with prominent keystones. This building is significant in the development of reinforced concrete architecture in Britain. It forms a group with numbers 106-113 Newgate Street.