King Edwards Buildings Post Office

The King Edward Buildings Post Office is a postal sorting office built between 1907 and 1911 by Sir Henry Tanner, with Richard Allison as the principal assistant. It features a front in free classical style, constructed from Portland stone with a polished grey-granite base and an area-balustrade. The building stands three storeys tall plus a basement, with arched openings on the ground floor supported by an order of attached Doric columns. It is five windows wide, with the ends set forward as wings that have high pediments interrupted by arched windows on the second floor.

Behind the main façade is a smaller block that is two bays deep, attached at the north-east corner to the main sorting office, which measures 325 by 185 feet. This section has three main storeys above ground, featuring loading platforms and glazed bays at both the west and east ends, along with bridges on the north and east sides connecting the sorting office to the post office facing King Edward Street. The entire structure is built using reinforced concrete, employing the Hennebique system as licensed to L. G. Mouchel and Partners.

Inside the main sorting offices, there are regularly spaced columns approximately 35 feet apart in both directions, connected by shallow reinforced concrete arches running north-south, which support subsidiary joists running east-west. The external walls of the sorting office, except for those facing Newgate Street, are non-load-bearing and finished in roughcast. Original windows remain on the east and part of the north fronts of the sorting office, while the south and west sides have had their windows replaced, with the walls rendered and planted. This building is significant in the history of reinforced concrete architecture in Britain and forms a group with the buildings on the west side of King Edward Street.