The post office

THE INTRODUCTION of the penny post by Rowland Hill in 1840 brought the postal service within the reach of everyone with a safe, speedy and cheap method of sending letters. This resulted in a tremendous increase in the volume of mail and by 1849, the number of items carried had reached almost seven million.

The first Post Office for Bourne was opened in Abbey Road in 1847 and within ten years there was a daily collection and delivery of letters. Horse-drawn carts were used to transport the mail between the Post Office and local railway stations and after the railway arrived in the town in 1860, all of the village postal services were eventually linked to Bourne.

The telegraph was connected to the Post Office in 1870 and in the same year, the post office was moved from Abbey Road to the stone-built premises in the market place, now the town centre, on the left of what is now Lloyds Bank and was run by John Pearce in conjunction with his stationery and music shop next door.

The mail service was particularly efficient at that time with letters from London arriving four times a day and there were three daily deliveries. The last collection for the capital was between 7 pm and 8 pm and the wall letter boxes that had been introduced in 1853 were so popular that they were being cleared three times a day, the last time varying according to location, between 6.45 a m and 7.05 p m. There were many such post boxes around the town but they were much smaller than those in use today.

The telephone service, which was also run by the Post Office, was introduced to Bourne in 1878 and trunk lines erected through the town on wooden poles in the early years of the last century. In 1944, a manually operated telephone exchange was opened at the Post Office premises in North Street and this continued in use for more than twenty years until an automatic telephone exchange was built in Manning Road when 560 subscribers were connected. The 999 emergency service was introduced at the same time. STD, or subscriber trunk dialling, was not immediately available and Bourne had to wait two years until the telephone exchange at Spalding was fitted with the necessary equipment.

Business at Bourne Post Office continued to expand as the population increased and in 1981, the present building in West Street was opened, complete with sorting office at the rear, one of the most modern in South Lincolnshire, and although there have since been several threats of closure, it continues to provide a useful service for the town handling a wide range of services in addition to letters and parcels.

The post office today