During the 1950s and 60s the GENERAL POST OFFICE, or “THE GENERAL” as it was universally known, dominated Agricultural Hall Plain. The impressive frontage of Hardwick House (the official name of the building) was the entrance to the General Post Office. This building was designed by Charles Hardwick, an architect who specialised in banks. However his most famous piece of work was the Great Hall of London’s Euston Station (demolished 1962). The Norwich bank was built in 1865 for the Crown Bank of Harvey and Hudson. The bank closed in 1870 when Sir Robert Harvey shot himself, having been involved in a financial scandal. It was then taken over by the Post Office. The Post Office remained for over a century until 1969. There you count ascend the steps to enter the hushed hall. Walking cautiously to the counter you could buy a tu’penny ha’penny stamp for sending a postcard anywhere in the country. Stamps were cheap in those days; the cheap rate for postcards only went up to 3 pence (3d) in 1965. The special lower rate was abolished in 1968, when first and second class mail was introduced. A first class stamp cost 3p, a ha’penny more than a second class stamp.
When the G.P.O. left Hardwick House the property was taken over by Anglia Television studios; before then Crown Road was a thoroughfare that ran between Cattle Market Street and Agricultural Hall Plain. You can see the structure, no more than a corridor to join the two buildings that made up the headquarters of Anglia TV; the former Agricultural Hall and the former GPO.
My father frequently had a number of business letters to post after the last collection had left the local post office branch. This required an evening journey to Hardwick House, where the post was collected up to 11 o’clock. The letter box was hidden away from the grand entrance, being a simple slot in the wall in King Street. The sorting staff were just a few feet away on the other side of the wall. When the Sorting Office moved to Thorpe Road Dad could still catch the last post (for letters to London and distant destinations) by going to Norwich Thorpe Station and using the letterbox on the side of the Travelling Post Office carriage. This involved going onto the platform, which would normally involve paying a penny for a platform ticket; however in this case he was allowed to access the TPO without paying the extra 1d by the kindly platform staff.
Before the new Mail Centre was built in Thorpe, Hardwick House was where the ground breaking new postcodes were first rolled out. The Mail Centre was given the postcode NR1 1AA. This happened after 1959, for when the system was first established the Norfolk postcodes took a slightly different form. It differed from the system eventually adopted nationwide. Take for example the postcode of our bungalow in Poringland; it was NOR 42W. Eventually this was changed to NR14 7QR to bring it into conformity with the current system. The sorting frames in Hardwick House were where this coding was first rolled out, though the precise location stopped well before the final sorting to individual addresses; even when I retired from postal employment in 2009, this last stage was still being carried out manually. The last two letters of the postcode may eventually be used, but even this will not entirely do away with human involvement in the delivery of letters. The postcode will only narrow the letterboxes down to a handful of numbers.
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