Description

SIDMOUTH RADWAY PLACE
SY 1287-1387
(west side)
1/293 Radway Post Office
GV II

Post Office with sorting room and garage. 1938, architect H E Seccombe ARIBA
and builders F Pinney and Sons. Red brick in flemish bond, cream limestone
dressings, polished granite plinth, slate roofs. A compact neo-Georgian main
block with, to right, two small pavilions and boundary walls flanking a yard
entrance, and incorporating built in telephone kiosks. At back, a sorting room
set at slight angle and linked to main block by single storey unit; to right
a detached large double garage. Street front in two storeys and 5 bays; centre
is 3 arched bays on free-standing Doric columns to a set-back section containing
pair of glazed doors under a fanlight, flanked by multi-pane casements to arched
heads with radial bars; this all in stone under tile-on-edge arches. To right
and left 15-pane sashes. At first floor are five 12-pane sashes, the centre
3 in stone architraves. Return, left has two 15-pane below two 12-pane sashes,
and return right two 12-pane over a doorway. Sashes set to splayed flat brick
arches and stone cills. To right the two low pavilions have stone string course
at level of main column capitals, with two blank panels above this but below
wood moulded cornice. Walls flanking pair of plank gates have stone string
continued as capping, and piers are capped with large granite spheres on square
bases. Main block has stone moulded cornice and two down-pipes to decorative
hopper heads. Roofs hipped. Large square stack back, right. Sorting office
has coped gable to Radway with large central arched multi-pane casement flanked
by 12-pane rectangular casements, and short return, linking to main block, has
7-pane casement over letter box. Main roof has long raised clerestorey skylight
with 6-pane pivot-hung sashes, to hipped gablet roof. One large opening gives
to yard which is also flanked by garage block with two wide openings and 15-pane
sash under hipped end towards road but behind pavilion.
Interior of public concourse had off-white and green terrazzo tiles set diagonally, a continuous dado frieze, including counter front,with moulded detail and fielded panels, and 3-panel fielded doors in moulded architraves; inset lobby contains series of multi-pane doors; all this joinery in polished hardwood, as also behind the public counter. Ceiling lighting fittings probably not original,but unobtrusive fluorescent trays set to tiling between transverse beams to 5 bay space. The whole is a worthy reminder of the qualities of design and finish possible in public buildings at this period, and a much more scholarly essay in neo-Georgian than is normally achieved later.

Listing NGR: SY1259987801

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26522468

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas