DIDCOT POST OFFICE
188 The Broadway
Architect: Frederick Llewellyn Year: 1939 Archive sources British Postal Museum & Archive: POST 91/1758, 1762 Selected bibliographical references Reading Mercury 5 Aug 1939, p. 12 Building description From: Reading Mercury 5 August 1939, p. 12 The new Didcot Post Office and sorting office on the Wallingford-Wantage Road, which will be opened on Wednesday, has been designed in a free rendering of traditional Georgian architecture. The building is faced externally with multi-coloured handmade bricks on a Cornish granite base, and has a pitched roof covered with Lombardic tiles of a colour to tone with the brickwork. The entrance doorway and cornice are of Portland stone, and the windows are mild steel casement sashes set in wood frames. The public office is approached from the main entrance through a lobby fitted with telephone cabinets, and the Postmaster's room and female staff accommodation occupy the remainder of the ground floor, while accommodation for the male staff and stores is provided on the first floor. The sorting office adjoins the back of the public office, to which it has direct communication and is served by a covered loading bank which is open to an extensive yard. An entrance is provided from the main road to the yard, but the postal van traffic will use a secondary entrance provided in Station Road. The building has been set well back, and an open paved forecourt has been formed between the building and the roadway. A posting box and a pair of stamp-vending machines have been set in the front wall of the Post Office, and a telephone kiosk placed in the forecourt. |