Post Office

Cadw's description

Location

Closing the N end of St Peter's Square. The E side faces the entrance to the Church of St Peter.

History

Post Office of 1906, replacing a former building on the site which was destroyed by fire in 1904. The building was purposely designed as a Post Office, and originally housed the local telephone exchange on the 1st floor. Shown in its current form on the Ordnance Survey of 1912.

Exterior

Three-window 2-storey block on a high plinth; red brick front with stone dressings; rendered return elevations with mainly brick dressings; hipped tiled roof. Near-symmetrical main elevation of 3 principal bays and canted angles, each with distinctive oriel window beneath the overhang of the eaves. Principal bays each have a timber-framed gable. The central gable is slightly advanced, forming an oriel window over the entrance, the bressumer supported on brackets. Gables have pointed-eded quatrefoils in lozenges, billeted bressumers and moulded barge-boards. Other detail to front includes moulded brick string courses to plinth and 1st floor. Central stone doorway with shallow basket-arched head, above which is a 2-pane overlight, the lights with arched heads. To R of entrance, a 3-light transomed window; to L of entrance, a pair of single lights. These have brick relieving arches, attached to which are modern fascias reading 'Post Office'. The canted angles each have a single light. The upper storey has cross-windows to L and R, projecting through the eaves; to centre the timber-framed oriel window has a large stepped 4-light casement with wrap-around sidelights; panelling with pierced decoration, mainly quatrefoils. Canted angles have square wooden oriel windows, immediately beneath the eaves, supported by cusped arched brackets and with pendant finials; the windows have 2 panes above the transoms and are plain-glazed below.

The sides and rear are rendered and whitewashed, the plinth becoming a basement storey to the W, where the ground falls away. Detail includes brick quoins and brick and sandstone string courses between storeys; brick reveals and sandstone lintels to mullioned and transomed wooden windows. The W side has asymmetrical fenestration, the ground floor well-lit with tall 2- and 3-light windows and single lights. The 1st floor has a shallow 3-light window and an irregular 4-light window; the basement has 3 openings boarded over. The E side is of brick to lower storey, rendered above. There were 3 stone cross-windows to ground floor, that to centre has lost part of its mullion, that to R converted to a doorway. Single-storey bay with parapets to R, containing a widened doorway. The upper storey has 3 single segmental-headed lights in a red brick panel, towards the centre and immediately under the eaves. The rear faces the graveyard and is 2-gable, that to L set back behind the single-storey flat-roofed bay; there are 2 brick stacks towards the rear, a corner stack to L of R-hand gable end and a ridge stack near L gable end. The rear has wooden cross-windows under segmental brick heads; the R-hand gable end has 1 to ground and 2 to 1st floor; similar window to L to flat-roofed bay.

Interior

Interior not inspected.

Reason for designation

Listed as a rare example of a purpose-built Edwardian post-office retaining its character and much of its original detail, closing the N end of St Peter's Square. Group value with listed buildings and monuments in St Peter's Square.