Radway Post Office

SIDMOUTH RADWAY PLACE SY 1287-1387 (west side) 1/293 Radway Post Office GV II

Post Office with sorting room and garage. 1938, architect H E Seccombe ARIBA and builders F Pinney and Sons. Red brick in flemish bond, cream limestone dressings, polished granite plinth, slate roofs. A compact neo-Georgian main block with, to right, two small pavilions and boundary walls flanking a yard entrance, and incorporating built in telephone kiosks. At back, a sorting room set at slight angle and linked to main block by single storey unit; to right a detached large double garage. Street front in two storeys and 5 bays; centre is 3 arched bays on free-standing Doric columns to a set-back section containing pair of glazed doors under a fanlight, flanked by multi-pane casements to arched heads with radial bars; this all in stone under tile-on-edge arches. To right and left 15-pane sashes. At first floor are five 12-pane sashes, the centre 3 in stone architraves. Return, left has two 15-pane below two 12-pane sashes, and return right two 12-pane over a doorway. Sashes set to splayed flat brick arches and stone cills. To right the two low pavilions have stone string course at level of main column capitals, with two blank panels above this but below wood moulded cornice. Walls flanking pair of plank gates have stone string continued as capping, and piers are capped with large granite spheres on square bases. Main block has stone moulded cornice and two down-pipes to decorative hopper heads. Roofs hipped. Large square stack back, right. Sorting office has coped gable to Radway with large central arched multi-pane casement flanked by 12-pane rectangular casements, and short return, linking to main block, has 7-pane casement over letter box. Main roof has long raised clerestorey skylight with 6-pane pivot-hung sashes, to hipped gablet roof. One large opening gives to yard which is also flanked by garage block with two wide openings and 15-pane sash under hipped end towards road but behind pavilion. Interior of public concourse had off-white and green terrazzo tiles set diagonally, a continuous dado frieze, including counter front,with moulded detail and fielded panels, and 3-panel fielded doors in moulded architraves; inset lobby contains series of multi-pane doors; all this joinery in polished hardwood, as also behind the public counter. Ceiling lighting fittings probably not original,but unobtrusive fluorescent trays set to tiling between transverse beams to 5 bay space. The whole is a worthy reminder of the qualities of design and finish possible in public buildings at this period, and a much more scholarly essay in neo-Georgian than is normally achieved later.

Listing NGR: SY1259987801