I was told that this Grade II Listed building at 66 Dovecot Street was originally the General Post Office, perhaps a newer more central one on the High Street replaced this one? c2013.
Photograph and details courtesy of David Thompson.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
I was caretaker of this building until 2012 it has a celler which flooded and it was decided to tank it out and put pumps in this happened in 2010 when the walls were removed there were blocked windows which ran under the car park at the back I was told these viewed a garage and the original building stretched to the back were the carpark is now.
The building is now used by Cultures Community Cafe if you go inside the front entrance you can see the old black and white GPO tiles I found removed the carpets on top of these they run into the main hall
The building is now Cultures Cafe if you go up to the double doors you can see the old black and white GPO tiles
Outside the building is 2 metal trap doors these were used to drop the mail down into the cellar to be sorted. The frontage of the bulding is made of sandstone which gets a lot of damage, one of the most interesting things is that if you go up the stairs following the old cast iron stair rail it suddenly stops and someone has built an entire floating floor which begins between the large windows in the front this adds a third floor this means the original landing must have been huge. Public access is allowed during cafe opening times.
A stunning facade, so delicately decorative and with a huge influx of light through such unusually large windows, which in total, must occupy over 40% of the frontage.
I often wonder who anon is as he seems to have extensive knowledge of Richard Hind among many other local subjects. Incidentally I was also at the Jube the night Vince Eager appeared
Yes it was the GPO. The sorting office was behind, I can picture the front office and the sorting office. Senior schoolboys did delivery rounds at Christmas in the wartime years so I had one year on that or assisting with sorting.
One of Ken Sawyer’s old pupils Michael Rowntree had a newsagents shop near here.
Another old pupil of Ken Sawyer – me – used to collect the post for my employees, the Yorkshire Penny Bank each morning, each morning when I worked at Stockton branch!
I was a temporary telegram boy age 14 working from this building during Stockton race week in august 1934, my first delivery was to an address in Norton I thought the job was to go has fast as I could on the Bicycle provided when I returned to the office I was told not to rush it and take more time delivering ,
the other boys and myself sat in the office waiting for our turn , the one I liked was taking telegrams to the race course were we sometimes received a tip of a couple of pence , it was a great experience working in the General post office.