Shop history: Headington’s Post Offices
This building at 142–144 London Road was built as a pair of private houses in 1926. In 1942 the house on the right was taken over as Headington’s central post office, and in the 1950s it expanded into the house on the left, where, over 60 years later, it is still going strong, although it ceased to be a Crown Post Office in the 1990s.
Headington’s first post office: Old High Street
Postcard supplied by Ian Garrett
Headington’s first post office opened in the 1840s in Old High Street, and initially the villagers Quarry, and then from the 1950s those of New Headington, had to trek there to purchase their stamps. James Waring (who was also the Master of the Free School in Quarry) is listed in directories as sub-postmaster in Old High Street in 1847, and as postmaster thereafter until his death at the age of 87 in 1874. His daughter Jane is listed as a postmistress in the 1861 census, and is seems likely that as he became older she and subsequently other younger people actually did most of the work.
In 1874 the post office was taken over by James Rudd, a coachman servant, who ran it in the grocer’s shop on the corner of Old High Street and St Andrew’s Road. He died at the age of 40 in 1883, and his widow Mary Ann became grocer and postmistress. By the time of the 1891 census her daughter Edith was the telegraphist there and her daughter Jessie an assistant; and by 1901 her assistant was her son Harold. By the time of the 1911 census Harold Edmund Rudd was married and running the grocer’s shop and post office himself.
By 1915 bigger premises were required, and Headington’s first central Post Office, which could offer advanced services such as the telegraph, opened in a prestigious new building on the central corner site of the present Londis shop in 1915, and Harold Rudd moved from Old Headington Post Office to be sub-postmaster there. It was described in directories as a “Post and Money Order Office, Telegraph Office, Savings Bank, Public Telephone & Express Delivery & Annunity & Insurance Office.” It remained in this building on the corner of Windmill Road until 1934, when it moved across the road to the present 117 London Road (now Annie Sloan), where it stayed for just eight years.
In 1942 it crossed back again to 142 London Road (on the right of the photograph above), and from this date was a Crown Post Office with a postmaster rather than a sub-postmaster. In the 1950s expanded to take over the other private house next door at 144; but in 1994, it retreated into 144 on the left.
Quarry post office
Quarry originally just had a letter-box in the wall of the Free School beside the Chequers. In 1881 its first post office was opened. It transferred to the Yews in Quarry High Street in 1882, but in 1892 moved back to the present 20 Beaumont Road. The 1911 census shows George James Cooper as shopkeeper and postmaster living there with his wife Kate, who was the sub-postmistress, and their only child Kathleen Emily (3). Kathleen did not marry, and continued to run the post office in Beaumont Road until 1962.
New Headington/Highfield Post Office
New Headington had a post office (known as Highfield Post Office) at the grocer’s shop at 74 Lime Walk (NW corner of the crossroads) from about 1890 to 1947. It then moved to the dairy in All Saints Road, where it remained until 1984.
The picture below shows Joseph Draper standing outside Highfield Post Office in Lime Walk (which was also a baker’s shop) in about 1905. The 1911 census shows him here at the age of 66, described as a baker & shopkeeper, with his wife Emily (61) and his three unmarried daughters: Edith (36) and Alice (31) assisted him in his business, while Ethel (25) was a telephonist.
Headington sorting office (below) opened at the top of Lime Walk in the 1950s and closed in 2005
