Post Office, Albany Street

This is a two-story post office, dated 1909, designed by W T Oldrieve and built in a 17th-century Scottish style. It has a rectangular plan, with the four bays on the south side slightly projecting and topped with a gable, creating an L-shaped appearance. The building is constructed of grey, squared rubble with snecked stone, dressed with yellow sandstone ashlar. A granite base course runs along the bottom, and an intermittent moulded cornice is present at the first-floor level. Crowstepped gables and pedimented dormers break the eaves.

The east elevation, facing Albany Street, is asymmetrical, divided into eight bays arranged in groups of four. The right-hand four bays are symmetrical, with the ground floor featuring a central entrance flanked by four roll-moulded, transomed windows set within a sandstone ashlar panel extending from the granite base course to a corbel at the first floor. Dormer windows with open pediments, flanked by engaged finials and small obelisks, break the eaves on the first floor. The left-hand four bays are asymmetrical, with gables above bays 1-3. A smaller gable projects at a right angle to the east elevation in bay 4, suggesting a re-entrant stair tower. Bay 1 has a roll-moulded window surround with a corbelled cornice above. Metal posting boxes are set into a raised section of the granite base course, with a string course at the top. A mullioned and transomed quadripartite window has segmental-arched upper lights, roll moulding, and a string course below. The entrance door in bay 4 is architraved, topped with an open scrolled pediment and a carved panel flanked by fluted pilasters with a small pediment above. The first-floor window in bay 4 is architraved with a corbelled cill and cornice. Windows in bays 1-3 have chamfered margins, superimposed cills, cornices, and carved strapwork. A framed panel bearing the date 1909 is situated between bays 3 and 4.

The north elevation features a crowstepped gable end wall and a central chimney stack with a strip pilaster extending down to the first floor level and corbelled decoration. Slit windows are located at the first floor, one to the outer right and two flanking the stack.

The west (rear) elevation is asymmetrical, with a wide, rectangular stair tower in the centre, featuring chamfered corners and a corbelled parapet. A crowstepped gable, with chimney decoration resembling the north gable, is to the right of the stair tower. Pedimented dormers break the eaves at first-floor bays 1 and 2, and bipartite windows are present in the stair tower and gable.

Window frames are timber. The ground-floor windows on the east elevation, specifically bay 1, include a decorative timber clock mounting with plate glass. The windows are quadripartite with six-pane upper sashes and plate glass lowers. Bays 5-8 have six-pane upper sashes and plate glass lowers. The first-floor windows in bays 1-4 are multi-pane casement windows with fixed lights above, while bays 5-8 have 20-pane sash and case windows. Rear and side elevations feature multi-pane sash and case windows. The roof is grey slated with bell-cast eaves and decorative exposed rafter ends, with cast-iron gutters and downpipes. Grey granite gateposts, matching the base course and featuring pyramidal caps, are located at the north end of the east elevation.