Addle Hill Annex

Post Office Savings Bank - Addle Hill Annex
GPO South ...more than 100 years of history.

Here are some contemporary photos of the Savings Bank building on Addle Hill.

Photo: Post Office Savings Bank HQ - Addle Hill © Light Straw October 2005.

| EXIT | Post Office Savings Bank Extension on Addle Hill | The Finale |

Addle Hill Annex

The annex to the Post Office Savings Bank stood on Addle Hill, for over 100 years, from about 1890 until its demolition in 2005. Initally, the building accommodated clerks and officers of the Savings Bank, in the grand style of public utilities of the era. High ceilings and capacious rooms to house hundreds of staff with desks, ledgers, index cards, filing and much paperwork.

GPO Telephones

By 1901 the GPO had began installation, on the fourth floor of this building, what was to be the 'Central' telephone exchange. The Savings Bank had vacated the site by 1903 and over the years the building was adapted and further extended to house (heavy bulky) telephone switching equipment, not to mention the hundreds of engineers and operators who were to maintain and run the systems.

View from Addle Hill
	By design, the Savings Bank building on Addle Hill was both ornate and capacious. The metal railings appear to remain untouched in spite of two world wars! The sloping wire mesh was to prevent objects (or people?) from gaining access to the basement. Photo: Post Office Savings Bank HQ - Addle Hill © Light Straw 2002.
	This oversized doorway gives and idea of the scale and grandeur of the building. Photo: Post Office Savings Bank HQ - bottom of Addle Hill © Light Straw 2002.
	A relic of the past. Looking up Addle Hill, this photo of the Savings Bank shows how grand and lofty this nineteenth century building once was. Photo: Post Office Savings Bank HQ - Addle Hill © Light Straw 2002.
The Finale
	By the late 1900s, the Addle Hill extensions were no longer fit for purpose; their sprawling corridors and lofty rooms expensive to heat and maintain in a changed world where miniaturisation now ruled. I expect that it would not have been practical to retain the facade of the buildings while adapating them to 21st century working standards, and so in 2005 the site was raized to the ground. Photo: Post Office Savings Bank HQ - Addle Hill © Light Straw 2002.

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