Why would the stretch of buildings immediately below the P.O. have been completely rebuilt?
They do not look anything other than original lay out and nobody would do such work without a fairly massive investment of capital..
Currently the properties there have huge tall Bay windows and basements, not at all what you would expect to have been a result of speculative redevelopment.
Hastings Forum
Mystery Photo
Re: Mystery Photo
whiffler wrote: Poster might be Watches and lower text All Treasures ?
Poster says Matches All The Scores.
Re: Mystery Photo
Geoff wrote:Very interesting... my copy of the card and is unposted. However it does have Cambridge Road Hastings 1903 scribbled on the back in pencil.
Did you come to the same conclusion that this is where the empty post office building is today?
I didn't come to a conclusion really. My jury is still out on whether it is Hastings at all, though if it isn't there it would be a huge coincidence that your copy also says Hastings 1903! On HAPP (See link above) someone suggested bottom of London Road, which could be right, and the mention of Cambridge Road is just that - a handwritten mention as part of the sender's address. I've tried to look up the address for Inland Revenue in Cambridge Road in old directories without luck so far. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing that there was such an office somewhere there at one time.
Re: Mystery Photo
1854 Aug 1'st The town’s post office moved from 4 George Street to 2 Wellington Place (where the former Woolworth’s store used to be located) to improve its coverage of the new town centre and St Leonards. It had been at 4 George Street since 1831; prior to that it had been in a succession of different places in High Street.
1869 June 29 – The town’s new main post office opened in a newly-built government-owned building. It had moved from 2 Wellington Place, where it been since 1854, to 1 Queens Road, where the Halifax Building Society is today. On the upper floor were offices for the Inland Revenue and Surveyor of Taxes. The Telegraph department would be there when the post office soon took over the telegraph service. Most of the ground floor was one large room, used as the post office, where the eight ‘letter carriers’ prepared for their walks. It moved to Cambridge Road in 1930.
1869 June 29 – The town’s new main post office opened in a newly-built government-owned building. It had moved from 2 Wellington Place, where it been since 1854, to 1 Queens Road, where the Halifax Building Society is today. On the upper floor were offices for the Inland Revenue and Surveyor of Taxes. The Telegraph department would be there when the post office soon took over the telegraph service. Most of the ground floor was one large room, used as the post office, where the eight ‘letter carriers’ prepared for their walks. It moved to Cambridge Road in 1930.
Re: Mystery Photo
In some areas 'posties' had their own form of transport in traditional post office red.
Picture from Ironbridge postal museum. I had not seen a pentacycle before.
Picture from Ironbridge postal museum. I had not seen a pentacycle before.
Re: Mystery Photo
The buildings remind me very much of Robertson street roughly where cafe des arts is . The facades and window treatment looks very similar and the bollards would be where Robertson passage would be ( the road was much narrower before they demolished the end building in the late 1970s), but I'm not sure about the building in the background ( where French's would be) unless French's is a later rebuild.?
Re: Mystery Photo
Interesting theory Leigh. Isn't there too much of a slope on the road though?
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Re: Mystery Photo
I would have to agree with Jim on this one. There's no slope on Robertson Street to speak of, yet the picture shows a definite incline.
Re: Mystery Photo
All we know - it's on a slope somewhere, maybe not locally!
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