post office

Attached three-bay three-storey former post office, built c.1880, having two-storey return to rear; façade remodeled c.1900, with shopfronts inserted to ground floor. Purpose-built staff apartments to upper floors. Now in use as drapery shop. Pitched tiled roof with red brick end chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Painted lined-and-ruled rendered walls, having render quoins and string course. Oeil-de-boeuf windows with moulded render surrounds, with render label moulding with decorative stops, having spoked windows. Square-headed window openings having moulded render surrounds, painted granite sills, and replacement windows. Central segmental-headed door opening with timber panelled door with carved timber doorcase with scrolled consoles and plain overlight, the whole surrounded by painted stone surround with decorative mascaron keystone. Square-headed shopfront openings with moulded render surrounds and recent timber display windows and doors.

A notable building of the town due to its height, scale and form, as well as its distinctive circular windows. It retains much heritage fabric, including the post boxes as a subtle reminder of its former use as a post office. The applied render decoration emphasises and enhances the formal properties of the building. It is suggested that the head on the keystone is of Rowland Hill, the designer of the first stamp, the penny black, although comparison with portraits of Hill would suggest that it is a generic decorative feature.