Post Offices, pillar boxes and stories of greeting cards part 1

We take for granted that we can pretty much talk to whoever we want whenever we want and to anywhere in the world.

Before the phone there was the letter or postcard, which from the middle of the 19^th century meant that news from family and loved ones was just the cost of a stamp away.

Before that of course  it was a different matter.  First you would have to find someone going in the right direction, spell out on the envelope where exactly to deliver the letter and then hope that it arrived.

But the introduction of the universal postal system in 1840, and the issue of postage stamps in the May of that year very much created the system we know today.

All of which is an introduction to post offices, pillars boxes and stories of postcards which will be delivered over the next few months.

Now our first modern post office was on Beach Road at what is now number 68*and during the rest of the 19^th century operated from a number of locations before settling at Wilbraham Road in 1901.

The authorities had chosen to adapt an existing house and following the trend across the township had built a shop onto the front of the house.  

The brick extension took over the right hand side of the double fronted house and all of that side of the garden.  This still left nine rooms at number 7 as accommodation for James Lucas who was the first postmaster.  Here he lived with his wife and two servants.

Ironically it was this extension which survived after the house had been demolished following a direct hit during the Manchester Blitz in 1940.

In total that high explosive bomb destroyed numbers 3, 5, and 7 Wilbraham Road.  **

And with that odd sense of consistency that often runs through the past the new post office which was opened in 1961 was built on the site of number 3 and 5.

I say odd, but I suppose it made perfect sense to reopen as close to the old one as possible, in a prime site directly opposite the railway station on land that had remained vacant since the bombing.

I can’t say that the new post office does anything for me.

It looks too much like one of those prefabs that went up after the last war to ease the housing shortage.

But I do think Peter’s new painting sets it off in the best light and has the added bonus of highlighting the new cafe which has taken over part of the building. Peter and I have collaborated on a number of projects all of which have appeared from time to time on the blog.

This painting has one other interesting feature which is the twin pillar box, which Peter tells me is the only one in Chorlton and which was designed to take letters for the UK on one side and everywhere else  in the world in the other slot.

Nor is this all, for Peter has also discovered that each pillar box has its own address reference number printed in the bottom left hand corner of the front collection plate.

It rather raises the possibility that with the demise of train spotting here is a new hobby to draw the enthusiasts.

Now I could have chosen to publish all of them, but where would the fun be in that? So  your mission if you should so choose is to collect the evidence in whatever form you wish that you have visited each one.

Peter assures me, he wants to photograph each one but in the meantime has produced his own unique record of them all.

Pictures; The old Post Office with its front extension circa 1910 from the collection of Philip Lloyd, the remnant of that same post office in 1959, A.E. Landers, m18242, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and the modern post office and pillar box by Peter Topping, Paintings © Peter Topping 2013 www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

*And with a blatant piece of self advertising, stories of the shop and its post master and mistress can be read in my book, The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20for%20Chorlton

** http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-story-of-night-of-bombing-and-of.html

http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/of-bombs-and-lost-houses-and-coming-of.html