Yeovil's Virtual Museum

10 Middle Street

Built as Yeovil's main Post Office

 

In 1902, a new purpose-built main Post Office was opened on the corner of Middle Street and Union Street. As well as the main Post Office counter, it also served as the sorting office as well as office accommodation.

The building ceased to be a Post Office in 1932 when the new purpose-built Post Office was built in King George Street, opposite the municipal offices.

Marks and Spencer took over the building in 1933, as a faded stone sign at roof level indicates (see Gallery), and remained here until 1972.

The building was then occupied by WH Smith's, as it remains today.

With the closure of the King George Street post office announced in the autumn of 2018, the post office moved location to within the WH Smith store, thereby returning to its roots.

 

For details of all of Yeovil's post offices through history, click here.

 

 

From my collection

One of the first, if not the first, postcards of the new Post Office building. This postcard was sent in 1903 - the year after the building opened. In all these early postcards at the bottom right corner of the building (nearly at bottom centre of this postcard) is a separate shop - this was Nelson's Ltd, family butchers. The neighbouring shop jutting out into Middle Street was the Home & Colonial Tea Stores.

 

Opened in 1902 on the corner of Middle Street and Union Street, and now the WH Smith premises, this was Yeovil's spanking new purpose-built Post Office.

 

From my collection

This hand-tinted postcard is postmarked 1904 and shows the building as built and a comparison with the modern colour photo below makes the differences obvious - removal of roofline details such as the chimneys.

 

...and seen again on a postcard or 1905 - probably taken on a Sunday morning judging by the crowds of people!

 

From my collection

Using the same image as the previous postcard, this hand-coloured postcard with an integral frame was part of a series of Yeovil postcards produced around 1910.

 

From my collection

And the same image yet again on a hand-tinted postcard (with serious airbrushing at bottom left) - this one post-marked 1913.

 

The building occupied by Marks and Spencer, probably photographed in the 1930s.

 

Courtesy of Jack Sweet

Photographed in 1958, when the building was still occupied by Marks & Spencer.

 

... and photographed in the 1960s (?).

Courtesy of Robert Smith

 Photographed in 1991. 

 

The building photographed in 2013.

The beige panel set in the roofline parapet still retain, albeit very feint, the name of Marks & Spencer who took over the building in 1933.

 

Surprisingly, much of the building's ornamentation survives, including the wonderful lion's head, two carved faces looking down from the Corinthian capitals either side and the two squirrels - all Post Office symbols, the squirrels representing National Savings.