The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government departmentBennett, Edward
History
The post office and its story : $b an interesting account of the activities of a great government department
Bennett, Edward
Postal service -- Great Britain -- History
It is not therefore merely a fancy of my own that for the first time
London possesses in King Edward's Building a head post office which is
worthy of her, and which bears the same relations to the London district
as the post office in Liverpool does to the Liverpool district. London
is the biggest city in the world; it now possesses the biggest post
office in the world. That is as it should be. It is London's chief
office in a way that the old building never was. It has been built for
London, and is fitted up entirely to meet the needs of London. Nobody
who knows the old building could have said this of the inconvenient and
out-of-date structure which was built for other times and other
purposes.
The site of the new building covers ground which up to the beginning of
the thirteenth century was one of the numerous vacant spaces in the
north-west portion of the area enclosed by the Roman wall which went
round the City of London. This wall, it is conjectured, was built
between A.D. 350 and A.D. 369, only about half a century before Rome
withdrew her legions from Britain. It belongs, therefore, to the later
period of the Roman occupation of this country. A large section of this
wall was discovered by the workmen when digging the foundations for King
Edward's building, and it extended for about 400 feet. Most of this had
to be destroyed and carried away, but a fine bastion at the western
angle has been preserved, and can be inspected by visitors. The wall is
built in the usual Roman method, and is composed of Kentish ragstone
from the Maidstone district. In the ditch which ran outside the wall
were discovered a number of Norman and mediæval relics, and within the
wall many Roman remains. The section of wall laid bare by the workmen
was found underneath the playground and dining-hall of Christ's
Hospital, known to us all as the Bluecoat School. The school removed
from the building some years ago into the country, and the site was then
sold and divided between Bartholomew's Hospital and the General Post
Office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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