MEM21929 - Post Office, Fore Street, Dulverton (Building)

The building likely dates from the 17th Century and appears to have extended partially into Lady Street. The building was extended to the southwest and presumably truncated to the northeast during the late 18th Century.

The building on the corner of Lady Street was a premises occupied by Charles Follet, a saddler. It is now the post office. [1] The Post Office and Telephone Exchange was established in the former Lock's Saddlery, in the early 20th century. [2] Local tradition states that there was an arch across Lady Street connecting the Post Office building with the terrace on Bank Square. The arch had been removed by 1894. [3] The building was subject to rapid survey in 2011. The earliest fabric now recognisable lies in the northeastern part of the front range. The building may have been constructed in the 17th Century, with roof timbers of large scantling which appear to have continued to the northeast across lady street. This range may have lain in front of an earlier range, now represented by the middle range. The only evidence of this is the chimney, now beneath the present roofline, which might have originally featured as a lateral stack on the front of a long, low building on the northwestern side of the market place. Mary Siraut notes that the building and adjoining premises were known as Hagley's or Town Tenement from 1669 and that by the mid 18th Century the tenement consisted of two dwellings and shops, the earliest part being known as 'old' and the west part as 'new'. In the late 18th Century the building appears to have been extended to the southwest by the addition of a two storey structure with a high-pitched roof that swallowed the southwestern hip of the original roof and early chimney. This may have been during the truncation of the original house to widen Lady Street, the additional rooms perhaps being added to compensate for the loss of parts of the original building. At this time the middle range was reroofed and many of the internal fixtures were inserted. Siraut cites map evidence that the building had achieved its present footprint by 1790. In the late 19th Century the rear range of the building appears to have been built, or perhaps reconstructed, in red brick. The existing facades may also have been improved by the provision of new windows with flat-arched heads. Despite alteration in the 20th Century for commercial use, some domestic fixtures of the period c.1800 remain and one earlier 18th Century door, reset within the rear wing. [4]