Page 24 - HB- Church Road

Redditch Heritage Church Road

The Post Office Building

The former Post Office was built in 1888 as the main post office, and refurbished as the County
Court by Douglas Hickman (John Madim Design Group) in 1990.

In 1887 the new Redditch Post Office was
built and described as: ³⁸ ‘Erection of (much
needed) new Post Office, in Church Street.
The site occupies 100ft. by 56ft., the
building covers 86ft. by 44ft. The front is
ornamented with Bath stone dressings and
moulded bricks. On the ground floor are
entrance lobby, public office (28ft. by 20ft.),
battery room, instrument room (13ft. by
13ft.), sorting office (50ft. by 28ft.), and
Postmaster's room (15ft. by 12ft.). On the
first floor are caretaker's apartments,
postmen and clerks' retiring rooms (13ft. by
12ft. each). A road 10ft. wide on the east
side of the building gives access to post
carts, The cost of the building is about
£2,000, and is held by the Government on
a twenty-one years lease. Contractors,
Messrs. C. G. Huins and Sons, Redditch.’
When a new Post Office was opened in 1990
in the town centre the building housed the
County Court. In
2012 the building was for sale and describe
d ‘as located in a corner position fronting
The main Redditch Post Office, Church Road, circa onto Church Road and Adelaide Street in
1904 37 Redditch town centre. The building consists
of two storey former post-office building,
with a modern one storey
extension constructed to the rear’.³⁹ The two­storey former post­office building was of red brick
construction with stone detailing. A modern one storey extension was constructed to the rear.
There were two principle entrances to the property, the main 'public' entrance from Church Road
and a side entrance accessing from the car park on Adelaide Street. The property briefly consisted
of a former County Court, public waiting areas, open plan office space and a number of meeting
rooms. The ground floor rear extension allowed generous amounts of daylight from roof lights in
a number of areas.

The property had a secure small courtyard accessed from two of the rear meeting rooms. A gated
car park capable of parking approximately seven vehicles was accessed from Adelaide Street.
The boiler house was located within the car park, separate to the main building.⁴⁰ Apparently the
extension to the Post Office was built in the 1940s for telegram, telephone and office facilities. A
central battery type switchboard was installed at the Post Office in Church Road. In 1959 an
automatic exchange was established off Birmingham Road, so that the extension housed only
offices.⁴¹

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