General Post Office, 22 Lendal (left), seen from the south-east, St Helen's Square, York, and (right), seen from the north-west, from the direction of Museum Street.
General Post Office 22 Lendal, York. Architect: Sir Henry Tanner. 1884. Red brick and stone in a formal Tudor style with extra touches such as the leaded cupola and the decorative glass above the letter boxes (Pevsner and Neave 196).
Left to right: (a) The largest gable. (b) Unexpected "ogee-capped cupola with finials" beside it (listing text). (c) Gable over the western doorway.
The arrangement of major and minor gables and doorways is not symmetrical, but varied in height, provision of windows, etc. Latterly the central doorway has been blocked and post-boxes inserted.
Central doorway, left to right: (a) Central bay (b) Doorway here, now blocked. (c) Panels over central doorway with Art Nouveau-ish designs in coloured glass.
Western doorway, also
with decorative elements.
The street, Lendal, runs NW to SE, from Museum Street to St Helen’s Square, parallel to the river. The General Post Office is on the south, or river, side of the road. In the views from St Helen’s Square, immediately to the left of the Post Office is a passageway giving entrance to a pub, and then the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor; in that building the open arch gives entrance to the medieval Guildhall down the slope towards the river. The General Post Office is an important part of this ensemble. Unfortunately, it was closed in April 2019 after 135 years, so no interior access is possible.
Photographs by the author. Perspective correction, re-sising and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the source and (2) link your document to this URL or cite it in a print document. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Bibliography
"General Post Office." Historic England. Web. 18 July 2021
Pevsner, Nikolaus, and David Neave. Yorkshire: York and the East Riding. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Created 18 July 2021