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Date: c1937 Type: Post Office Status: Extant   Click to view map Coordinates: 31°40'23.35" S 29°01'53.24" E

The Post Office is a small scale, plastered Baker-style building under a hipped corrugated iron roof with three arched openings on the main facade forming a covered loggia. The entrance is through the larger middle arch which is flanked on each side by a large bulbous salt-glazed, J KIRKNESS LTD pot. Each pot is mounted on a substantial square base with quarry tiled upper surface. The loggia has a traditional red granolithic floor finish. An original wrought iron 'boot scraper' is mounted in the paved surface to the left of the entrance arch. The tiled ceramic panel by Audrey FRANK is no longer visible on the street facade. However the 'memory' of a rectangular panel can be seen in the rectangular cracked outline in the plastered wall surface to the right of the arched loggia. It is not unlikely that the tiled panel has been removed or plastered over in the recent past. The memory of a large arched window (?) opening is also visible on the right hand side of the facade. An feature of the street facade are the buttresses, which bookend the building. Each buttress has two sloping surfaces as the depth of the buttress progressively reduces to meet with the upper face of the wall. The rafter ends are fret sawn with a simple convex curve. The massing, architectural proportions, details and limited palette of materials used in the Post Office building are testament to the design skills of the architects of the Public Works Department at that time. While still used as a Post Office - the interior has been gutted to accommodate a modern, secure Banking Hall. A steel structure accommodating post office boxes has also been installed adjacent the Post Office, which detracts from the original setting. A modern yellow face brick wall with stub columns and a low palisade infill has been constructed along the street facade. [William MARTINSON, March 2011] All truncated references not fully cited below are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.