Post and Communicating
Our ealiest mention of letters being delivered to Stowupland was retold in the Suffolk Chronicle and tells of an 1840 Doggy Delivery
Our first post boxes were located at the corner of Mill Street and one facing The Green
1864 the post office was run by Robert Pyman (Harrod 1864 and White 1874). He was also a tailor living in one of the Malthouse Cottages which later was known as Croft farmhouse. Malthouse cottages were at the end of Park Farm Drive.
According to White’s directory 1891/2 ‘ the Post office is with Mr Dennis Wilden, letters were to be addressed via Stowmarket’
By 1908 Dennis Frederick Wilden as well as being a postmaster is a shoemaker and sexton. In 1906 Kelly’s directory refers to him as a bootmaker rather than a shoemaker.
In 1901 Aubrey Alfred Robinson at the age of 15 was living in Saxham Street and working as a telegraph messenger. He enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment but at the age of 21 he was was killed on 11 April 1917. He has no known grave but is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.
During WW1 Stowupland had 3 post boxes with collections 7 days a week. twice a day on Monday through to Saturday but only once a day on Sundays, at 9:30 a.m.
By 1927 the Gyford’s in Saxham Street were one of a handful of Stowupland people to have a telephone. They allowed local people to use it, T N Stowmarket 263
1927 Kelly’s Directory lists Reeve D. Wilden as boot maker and post office, phone number T N Stowmarket 145. . In 1937 the PO is in the front room of the right hand cottage of what was known in the 1970’s as Bay Cottage. Though Ena Carter noted around 1930 the post office was then in the house now called Boxtree Cottage (centre) This is along the A1120 adjacent to Holy Trinity Church.
For 33 years Reeve Wilden was agent at Stowupland for the ‘East Anglian Daily Times’ and the ‘Stowmarket Mercury’.
“The Post office ‘was not an imposing building’ being one room of a cottage, selling newspapers and stationery. Later it developed all the facilities of a P.O. and later still it became the telephone and telegraph centre. The P.O was set well back from the road; on the way to it we passed a small shoemaker’s shop, and adjoining it a large open shed called a “travis”; this harked back to the time when that set of buildings was used by a blacksmith, and horses to be shed used to wait in the travis. The forge was at that time on the site of the shoemaker’s shop. I suppose that was called progress. Now Mr Reeves was both shoemaker and postman. He did his rounds on a heavy bicycle with large square carrier baskets beck and front for letters and parcels. He worked through two deliveries a day, so he was a busy man”.{Extract from Rev L.A.Brame’s unpublished manuscript ‘As I Remember it, Book 1 (p. 74)}
‘The old Post Office was the home of Mr & Mrs Wilding [sic]. Mrs Wilding ran the post office and Mr Wilding used to make shoes and leather work According to Ena Carter in the 1970’s the PO premises were still ‘known as Reeve Wilden’s cobbler’s shop, this was a small house , just one up and one down’.
However in the 1960s Joseph C Littlejohn had turned the cobblers work shop into the PO and the old Po was converted back into a hall and sitting room, it was remaned bay Cottage and owned by the Grieveons. The Littlejohns moving into the left-hand cottage. In 1966 Littlejohn had sold the cottage and Post Office to Leslie Edwards and subsequently sold it to Hebert and Louie ‘Hocky’ Lazell.
‘.
In May 1985 planning permission was sought to demolish a single story lean-to and erect a 2-storey extension for residential accommodation.
According to a local resident writing in 2010, the post office premises had originally been a blacksmith’s, it had been converted in the 1950’s by the then owner Mr Littlejohn (Telstar, June 2010).
Our Post Office in 2004
from Stowupland Women Institute’s Archives.
As the speed and volume of traffic increased through the 20th and 21st century the location of Post Office on the A1120 caused significant problems. Drivers using the post office often parked on the pavement making it difficult for pedestrians, particularly wheel chair users and mothers with children in buggies to pass. The County Council were reluctant to impose a reduced speed limit unless there were accidents and a lay-by was deemed too expensive. A cheaper alternative was bollards to stop cars parking on the pavement.
it was claimed that moving the post office from Church Road to Walnut Tree Farm, Rendall Lane would offer ‘improved facilities and longer opening’ as part of a ‘proram to modernise and transform the post office network.’
A few years later in 2018 when Allards farm shop closed residemts had to rely on a mobile post office for 2 hours once a week. With the increasing use of the internet for buying and selling the postal service is in great demand. Unfortunately the PO van has to use the Village Hall WiFi to log transactions, but this was not designed for access from the car park so the van is limited as to where it can park up.
