Former post office, Machynlleth
Former post office, Machynlleth
Now home to Ian Snow Interiors, Crafts & Clothing, this was once known as Paternoster Buildings. Machynlleth’s post office was here for most of the 20th century.
In the early 20th century, people came to Paternoster Buildings to buy tobacco products from a retired clergyman. The Rev Evan Jones was a local historian and an ordained Methodist minister. After his health forced him to stop preaching in the 1880s he ran a stationery and publishing business and was the local agent for Lady Godiva Cigars, whose logo depicted a naked female horse rider.
In 1908 the Government authorised the post office’s relocation to Paternoster Buildings, which at the time was skeletal old building owned by Mrs Anne Jones. Rebuilding works included fitting out the entire ground floor with terracotta décor and a counter behind a glazed screen. Behind was a large sorting office, a workmen’s cooking range and a messroom for the postmen. Out in the yard were toilets, built to the “most modern principles”.
Three Machynlleth postal workers died in the First World War. Arthur George Gurney was a postman before serving as a Corporal in the Welsh Regiment. He was killed in France in May 1915, aged 29. His widow Catherine died in 1917, leaving their daughter Margaretta an orphan. Margaretta was 18 when she died in 1929.
Three months later Sergeant Edward Owen died in the Allies’ futile attempt to invade Turkey through the Gallipoli peninsula. He was a postman in Machynlleth before the war. He left a widow, Mary, and three children.
Hugh David Hughes worked for the post office for four years, before serving in a reserve battalion of the Grenadier Guards. He died, aged 18, in 1918 and was buried with full military honours at Machynlleth’s Nonconformist cemetery.
The post office remained here until the 1990s. The building was subsequently a help centre for people to access local services. Now it’s the main shop of Ian Snow, who started selling Indian handmade products at markets in Machynlleth and elsewhere in Mid Wales in March 1977.
Postcode: SY20 8AE View Location Map
With thanks to Rab Jones
Website of Ian Snow Interiors, Crafts & Clothing
To continue the Machynlleth in WW1 tour, go to the end of Heol Maengwyn, turn left into Heol Pentrerhedyn and left at the mini-roundabout. Y Plas is the large building to the right |