Property news: The history of buildings now under threat that were once the cornerstones of high streets

Published: 17 February 2011
by DAN CARRIER

FOR what is essentially a shopfront, they hit the headlines on a regular basis. Post offices are often seen as the cornerstone of a community and an integral feature on our high streets.

But because of higher costs and the privatisation of postal services, the changing way we bank and collect benefit and the rise of email, the once central role of the post office has changed, too. 

Scores have closed – the battles to save them in Camden have invigorated communities, though they are fights that are frequently lost – and with the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government looking now to privatise the postal services, their future remains uncertain. A recent Whitehall report suggested that a further 1,000 counters could be lost in the coming year.

But as a new book by former Royal Institute of British Architects librarian Julian Osley points out, the role the post office has played in shaping our streets cannot be underestimated. They became a byword for civic and community cohesion, a means of communication owned by the state on our behalf, a sign of a society at ease with itself, ready to talk to one another, and of business-like endeavour.

“Purpose-built post offices are a feature of every UK town and city,” Mr Osley writes.

“As postal services expanded to meet the needs of emerging commercial centres, so too did the need for dedicated buildings to house these services.”

Their role meant that a great deal of civic pride went into building post offices, in a similar way that great Victorian industrialists bank-rolled town halls. They had to be able to inspire confidence, and so some of the best architects of the day were employed to draw up plans. 

“Citizens were anxious that the image of their towns was not adversely affected by the appearance and condition of the head post office,” Mr Osley writes.

“In 1886 Southampton town council, arguing the case for a new post office, described the existing building as ‘the meanest, dirtiest, and shabbiest structure’ in the main street.” 

This would clearly not do. In their pitch for a new office they asked for one that would be of “such architectural character as will mark the post office one of the most important buildings of the town and be suitable to the importance of the borough”.

Mr Osley’s book, using careful research at the British Postal Museum and Archive and at the RIBA library, charts the earliest post offices. In 1680, the only place a letter could be sent from was the office of the Postmaster General in the Bank. The book goes on to trace the growth of central post offices in major cities such as Edinburgh and Dublin.

Architects such as the classicist Robert Smirke were brought on board to give them some stature. It meant many of the early designs were in the Greek revival style. 

This set the tone for a long and illustrious history of good design which mimicked whatever style was  in vogue at the time. Solid Georgian classicism gave way to Victorian Gothic, while in the 20th century the trend continued.

In Kentish Town, a single-storey Edwardian sorting office (handily positioned in Leighton Road, close to the railways) was typical of the architect Jasper Wager, which had a hint of the Baroque about them.

Further examples, the author points out, can be found in Highgate and Islington. Then there was the dash for Modernism, where the post office came to mean functionality, reliability – and some quirky design features, some of which worked, others that were not so successful. 

They included the introduction of full height windows, which were encouraged not just to bring light inside, but because parents were told to leave babies in prams outside, they could keep an eye on their young charges left in the street.

Leicester saw the introduction of a sub-post office whose quirk was to be a drive-in. The architects working on that particular project had a round peg and a square hole to sort out as counters had to be high enough so staff did not have to stoop, and low enough so the driver could use the facility.

Other asides include details on the country’s first 24-hour post office, which was in Trafalgar Square and boasted the largest counter in Europe, measuring 180 feet long. It was decorated with a frieze of the battle of Trafalgar in the sorting office.

Mr Osley then moves on to new uses for old post offices. Some have become pubs – there is the aptly named Penny Black in Bicester, and another that has become a Harvey Nichols in Birmingham. Closer to home, the Crowndale Centre in Eversholt Street, once a major office, is now a library and council housing office. 

• Built For Service: Post Office Architecture, by Julian Osley. 
Published by The British Postal Museum & Archive