The Post Office, 3 Scarva Street, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 3DB

This is a former Post Office building, now used as a sorting office, on the north side of Scarva Street in Banbridge town centre. It was built in 1939 to designs by T.F.O. Rippingham ARIBA, of the Ministry of Finance for Northern Ireland, in a Neo-Georgian style. It has been described as "neo-classical grey-brick style at its most successful" (Brett) and was considered an imposing and dignified addition to the streetscape when it opened. The contractors were Messrs Isaac Copeland & Sons of Belfast, and the Clerk of Works was Captain Robert Whitsitt. The official opening took place on Thursday 6th July 1939 at 3pm, conducted by the Right Honourable J.M. Andrews DL MP, then Minister of Finance for Northern Ireland.

The building has a rectangular plan with a full-height return, and a single-storey office extension to the north. It is three storeys and three bays in its essential composition, though the principal south-facing elevation is five openings wide on each floor. The pitched roof is covered in pantiles — described at opening as Spanish tiles — with a dentilled cornice, projecting eaves, and broken pediment to the gables. The gables are in a Greek Doric style. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods run along the projecting eaves, with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers.

The walls are faced in Ruabon silver grey brick laid in Flemish bond on a base of grey Mourne granite ashlar from Annalong, with a continuous string-course at impost level to the ground floor and a stone frieze punctuated by a drop motif. Windows throughout are replacement uPVC set almost flush with the wall, with granite sills; those at ground floor level are round-headed and set within brick recesses.

The main entrance on the south elevation is a double-leaf four-panelled timber door with brass door furniture, set within a granite architrave with a twisted rope moulding. Above the door is a plain architrave, a Greek key cornice, and a semi-circular uPVC fanlight.

The west elevation has a flat-roofed stairwell extension to the left, lit by small rectangular windows to the north. To the second floor is a round-headed blind opening with a projecting brick base and piers on a corbel stone; a uPVC window serves the first floor; and replacement timber doors and a window occupy the ground floor to the right. The east elevation has a round-headed infill window to the second floor, with a projecting brick base and piers on a first-floor keyblock.

The north rear elevation has a full-height return at the centre, one window wide to the east and west elevations, with left and right bays two windows wide. At ground floor level it is abutted by the single-storey office extension, which has double-leaf timber doors surmounted by a transom light and two windows; the west elevation of this extension is five uPVC windows wide.

At the time of opening, the interior was richly finished. The public office was panelled in Burma teak with an Italian terrazzo floor. The sorting office had an Empire maple herringbone wood block floor, and wood block flooring was used throughout the ground floor more generally. A reinforced concrete staircase served the upper storeys. Valuation records from around 1940 also noted polished wood panelling to the public office, and it is possible that this survives behind modern panelling in the ground floor room known as GO2. The building has since been fully refurbished internally, though the original floor plan is largely unchanged.

The original ground floor accommodation comprised an entrance vestibule, public office, postmaster's retiring room and kitchen, instrument room, mail bag store, stationery store, and a large sorting office with observation corridor. The first floor contained the postmaster's room, retiring rooms for women, men, and messengers, a clerks' room, kitchens, and lavatories. The second floor housed the automatic telephone exchange — approached by a separate external staircase — a battery room, and an office. A building to the rear of the yard contained the engineers' retiring room, a store room, and lavatories. A lock-up garage in the yard housed a motorcycle and sidecar belonging to the telephone exchange. Central heating and hot and cold water were installed throughout. The building entered Valuation Records in 1940 at a valuation of £250.

The site had previously been a butter and egg market that had fallen into disuse. The building does not appear on historic county series maps but is shown on the Ordnance Survey map edition from the 1960s and 1970s as an L-shaped structure captioned "P.O."

The building sits directly to the west of the town hall and faces onto Scarva Street. To the rear is a tarmacadam yard enclosed by modern metal gates to the west and a timber-panelled gate with a pedestrian entrance to the east. The building continues in use by Royal Mail as a sorting office; the public office is no longer in use and public access is limited to parcel collection.