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Post, Telegraph & Telephone

Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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The former Post Office, on the corner of The Shambles and Market Street

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The first recorded Postmaster in Bradford on Avon was a clothier and grocer called John Renison, who was appointed in 1769 and was still in the post in 1792. From at least 1830 to 1844 Charles Johnson served as Postmaster and grocer in St Margaret’s Street. In 1837 a letter-carrier was employed, delivering in the town in the morning and to Winsley and Westwood in the afternoon; a woman named Priscilla carried letters to South Wraxall.

Next came printer Joseph Rawling who died in 1866 and passed the office and printing business on to his son Charles. In 1887 William Hanny was postal messenger to South Wraxall where Henry Rudman was Postmaster and grocer, Aaron Sims was postal messenger to Monkton Farleigh and John Sims was postal messenger to Westwood and Winsley.

After Charles Rawling retired on the 31 March 1898, there was no building for the Post Office, so a private company built one in 1899 and leased it to the Post Office, opening it at the corner of the Shambles and Market Street in 1901. The architect was William Stanley (died in 1933) of Trowbridge. The General Post Office (GPO) bought it in 1923, at the expiry of the lease and later demolished a tall Georgian building next door in 1935 for an extension which opened in the next year.

Sub-post offices opened in Trowbridge Road (now moved to the garage shop) and Bath Road (moved to the former G.W.R. Stone shop, now Southern Co-op, Winsley Road) and there were offices in all the villages, several now closed.

The Royal Mail sorting office moved to modern premises in Rowden Lane in 1996 and the Post Office itself closed in 2013, with its functions being handled by Budgens, now the Co-op, supermarket.

The Post Office provided a telegraph service in Bradford in 1870 and the National Telephone Company opened an exchange in 1895. Telephone exchanges are in Bradford, Holt and Limpley Stoke.

As in Bradford, post offices in the villages have moved around:

Atworth‘s was in Bradford Road in 1887, but moved to Bath Road (Miss O.E. Dowse in 1958), where there is still a Post Office Lane; the current office is in the shop at the Bear Garage.

Broughton Gifford Post Office was once in Cromwell Cottages, The Street. The last was in the Bell on the Common public house; there isn’t one now.

Holt‘s Post Office began on Ham Green, near the White Hart (Tollgate), then migrated to 99 The Street, then again further east at 180 the Common and it is now at the Holt Superstore.

Limpley Stoke‘s Post Office was in the next building up from the Hop Pole Inn, Woods Hill and later moved across the road, in the shop next to the garage, but it closed in 2004. Some Post Office functions are available at the Galleries shop in neighbouring Freshford on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Monkton Farleigh stayed in the same building, just up from and opposite the church, but it closed in 2014. A reduced service is available two days a week at the King’s Arms pub.

Westwood‘s Post Office is now in the shop in Tynings Way

Wingfield‘s post, routed via Trowbridge, was handled by James Hill in 1915 in his shop in Shop Lane, long closed.

Winsley‘s was at the Wheatsheaf shop on the west of the village, moved up the lane towards the church and then in the shop in Tyning Road until that closed in 2022; another shop-post office was in the hamlet of Turleigh.

Bradford, Monkton Farleigh, South Wraxall, Westwood and most of Winsley are within the BA15 postcode area. Mail to Limpley Stoke and the Winsley Hill/Murhill area of Winsley is handled through Bath (BA2 postcode); Wingfield and Holt through Trowbridge (BA14 postcode); Atworth and Broughton Gifford via Melksham and have SN (Swindon) postcodes.