Postal Museum

The Postal Museum and shop dates from the late 18th century, with rebuilding in 1823 and alterations in the late 19th century, 1906, and the 20th century. The front is constructed of limestone ashlar, while the rear uses ashlar, rubble, and coursed squared limestone, with limestone rubble to the right side. The building has a double pile, parapeted roof with double Roman tiles to the front and a hipped roof covered in double Roman tiles to the range at the rear right; the range to the rear left has a gabled roof covered in artificial slate. There are ashlar stacks to the front roof and ends of the rear ranges.

The building is three storeys and a basement, with a five-window range. The first floor features five six/six horned sash windows within splayed cyma moulded architraves with friezes and cornices. The second floor mirrors this with five six/six sashes in cyma moulded architraves rising from stone sills. The ground floor has a 20th-century shopfront to the left, and a central panelled door with flush beaded and moulded panels under a stone cornice of a former shopfront, which has three acroteria to the left end. To the right, a 1906 shopfront by J.W. Gardiner, with 20th-century alterations includes plate glass windows flanking a recessed glazed door with overlight; the lobby has a terrazzo floor with the lettering 'L T POUND' encompassed by panelled pilasters, carved consoles to the fascia, and a dentil cornice. There are no openings to the basement. Features include a sill band to the first floor, a bracketed eaves cornice, a coped parapet, a lead hopperhead and downpipe to the left, and a late 19th-century iron bracket for a sign above the central door.

The rear elevation includes a canted bay containing a staircase, with horned sashes in plain reveals, and a lead hopperhead and downpipe attached to the rear right. The ground floor of the Postal Museum (No.8) has been heavily altered, while the shop (No.9) retains a run cornice and an ovolo moulded archivolt to a chimneybreast alcove in the front room.

Historically, No.8 Broad Street formerly served as a Post Office, significant as the site from which the world’s first adhesive postage stamps were franked and sent on 8th May 1840. Previously the King's Arms, it was leased to J. Wilshire in 1800, with a newly constructed building. In 1823, it was leased to William Baskett, who had rebuilt the former King's Arms.