Lodore The Old Post Office

The Old Post Office and Lodore is a house, originally built in the early 18th century and later divided into two dwellings in the mid-20th century. It is constructed of red-brown brick with a renewed pantile roof. The house has two storeys and five bays, following a lobby-entry plan. A central four-panel door with overlight provides access, flanked by sash windows with glazing bars set within flat brick arches. The windows in bays four and five have been renewed, and a 20th-century door has been inserted into a window opening in bay five. A string course runs at first-floor level, continuing around the building, and a dentilled eaves cornice crowns the structure. A central ridge stack is present, along with an added stack to the far left. The left return shows a 20th-century window to the ground floor, a doorway reduced to a window, and a blocked window to the attic. An unsympathetic 20th-century shop attached to the right is not included in the listing. The interior entrance opens onto the side of a large fireplace with a timber bressumer, which provides heating for bay two. An inserted corner fireplace is found in bay one. Behind the stack, a fine early 18th-century staircase with three straight flights, double vase balusters, and a moulded handrail stands against the rear wall. Timber-studded partition walls and cavities flank the stack on the first floor. Bays four and five, which house a separate dwelling with an attached shop, were not inspected during a resurvey. The house was likely built as a large farmhouse, including storage space for equipment and grain in the attic storey, and notable for retaining its original plan and a fine staircase.