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| Upper Froyle Post Office - now a private house
- has been dated back to the 15th Century. This original timber framed
medieval hall house is the part that faces the road. The wing - to the right in the lower picture - was developed from a separate one bay building, possible a one storey farm building. The chimney, hearth and bread oven may well have been added when this small building was linked up to the cottage to provide a service wing, possible around the end of the 17th Century, or early in the 18th Century. Part of the land of the present Blunden’s Farm was Froyle Common Land, with the Post Office Cottage as a small-holding. It became a Carpenter’s Shop, with double doors in front, and a loft over the top to store timbers. There was a saw-pit inside and another outside, for heavier work. The Post Office was a ‘hole in the wall’ where people bought their stamps and posted their letters near the front door of the Cottage. Thomas Robinson worked in this Carpenters Shop as a young man, and later lived, and brought up his family, in the Post Office Cottage. The Census records him as a Jobbing Carpenter in 1881 (living at Blundens Farm) and a Carpenter & Postmaster (at the Post Office) in 1891. His wife, Harriet, is shown as Postmistress. (click on the pictures to enlarge them) |
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