Nostalgia: When trying to post a letter in Worcester was a tricky business

Then the city’s general post office stood in Shaw Street and was the only place in town where citizens could pop their letters in the post. There were no branch offices nor pillar boxes, so everyone living everywhere from Barbourne to St John’s had to make their way to “the General” in the city centre. 

A Victorian view of Foregate Street taken from the railway bridge. See the height of the gentleman’s top hat, bottom right

Neither was it much easier to buy postage stamps, because these could only be purchased from Shaw Street or at the shop of Thomas Lewis, the stationer, near the top of Broad Street. Which was a bit of a pain because although there was free delivery of letters in a relatively small central area of the city, beyond that everything needed a stamp.

Skan’s original premises in Foregate Street, opposite the Star Hotel. The tobacconists and hairdressers then moved to the top of Broad Street to take over a former post office

Lewis’s shop later became Broad Street Post Office and remained so until the 1920s, when it moved to the other side of the road near Angel Place. The property was subsequently acquired by businessman Dick Skan and converted into the well-known Skan’s Tobacconists and Hairdressers, which had previously been in Foregate Street.

Foregate Street Railway bridge as refurbished in 1909. On the left, through the arch, is the Empire Music Hall. It became the Silver Cinema in 1915 and is now the Odeon

My late father, gent’s barber Wally Pryce, worked from there until he died in 1983 and later the shop, which has a distinctive (and expensive to replace) bow glass window, was turned into a food outlet with the hairdressing side moving to first floor premises next door.

The original Worcester Post Office had been in Mealcheapen Street in a building twice known as the Shades Tavern, when that area was the centre of the city’s commercial life.

Marks and Spencer’s penny bazaar stood next to the rail bridge and opened in 1908 before moving to High Street in 1927

Before becoming a tavern it had been the home of Johnsons, one of the leading families in Worcester, and one of the best private houses in the city. In its first incarnation as The Shades it was where Edward Elgar’s father stayed when he first arrived in the county from London.

As businesses tended to congregate more around Foregate Street, the post  office moved there, until relocating to Shaw Street and a property purpose built by John Hughes, a wealthy contractor, who was responsible for the entire north side of the street.

The Reindeer Hotel was opposite the Shades in Mealcheapen Street and today gives its name to the Reindeer Court retail development. Pic courtesy Ray Jones

In the 1868, the post office moved again to premises on the corner of Foregate Street and Pierpoint Street, which had been a bank and before that the home of hospital surgeon Matthew Pierpoint . This is now the Postal Order Public house.

The Shades Tavern in Mealcheapen Street. The property was the original home of Worcester Post Office

In 1953  there was another relocation,  to a new build on the other side of Foregate Street railway bridge, opposite the Star Hotel. Today, Worcester’s main post office is but a shadow of its former self, occupying a small section of the first floor of WH Smith in High Street, while its former home is a Tesco Express. Another sign of progress?