southeast

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called GOULBURN, NSW, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

Built 1881.

Plans were drawn up by James Barnet, colonial architect, for a new post office to replace the existing post office operating from rented premises. The Goulburn Post Office was completed in1881 by F Horn and was officially opened by Postmaster General, Francis Bathurst Suttor. A public holiday was proclaimed in Goulburn to celebrate the opening. The post office cost £16,000 (pound sterling) to construct. In addition, the Goulburn Telephone Exchange was opened in 1891. Goulburn Post Office is located in Auburn Street (former Hume Highway) in a precinct framed by other notable public buildings. The frontage to Auburn Street is symmetrical, dominated by a five-storey clock tower, flanked by two double-height arcades and terminated at each end with three-storey flanking pavilions. At each end there are two-storey wings covered in concrete tiles and fronted by a plain Italianate porch, which is set back from the pavilions. These provide additional entrances to the complex. The tower has a central arched street entrance surrounded by rusticated stucco banding with a sculpted head of Queen Victoria, rusticated flanking voussoirs, a stepped reveal and battered base. It is topped by a plain frieze entablature with signage for the post office. A cornice indicates the first floor line and this is followed at the first tower floor level by a blind parapet moulding, broken by a balustrade of grouped circles below a central window. Evidently a central driveway to the rear yard went through the main arch in the clock tower's ground floor level, which has been replaced by part of the public hall.

From - auspost.com.au/about-us/heritage-property-showcase.html#g... The "central driveway" can be seen clearly in this photo. The missing clock implies this is fairly close to 1881 - see reference to the Town Council shortly providing and placing in the tower - Australian Town and Country Journal 15/10/1881 p.32 (with illustration!) - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/70961248. The clock was in place by "1885" - recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/PhotoSearchItemDetail.asp... And "1887" - investigator.records.nsw.gov.au/asp/photosearch/photo.asp... Trying to narrow it down a bit more ...

Now -

Details of the opening on Monday 3/10/1881 from SMH 4/10/1881 p.8 - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/13496061 Clock and campanile (?) were certainly there by 1885 - see this illustration in the Australian Town And Country Journal 3/10/1885 p.27 - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/70984746 So this photo is 1881-85. Until someone can find out exactly when the clock was installed!

Slightly later photo with the clock -

Museums of History NSW - State Archives Collection Thanks for posting this! I have been trying to find out when the clock and campanile(?) were installed. Some time between 1881 and 1885. See notes and comments on this slightly earlier photo -

Google Street View - maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=-34.754551,149.718174&a... NSW Heritage - www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_01_2.cfm?itemid=5051273

beachcomber australia It really hasn't changed at all, it's still a beautiful building. AB

Museums of History NSW - State Archives Collection beachcomber australia We visited Goulburn recently ... here's the shot I took of the post office ... yes. it's a lovely building

John Cowper Thanks for adding that, John. AB

South east surely? ;-)

slimypants Thanks for spotting that - it's been corrected.