What follows is my ‘Potted’ history of the Scarborough ‘Main or Crown’ Post Office and the Falsgrave Post Office.
I have an interest in this subject because for just over twenty years out of her twenty five years of service until she retired in 2018, my wife was the manager of the Falsgrave Road Post Office.
One of the first mentions of a form of early Post Office (then called a Post House) in Scarborough was in 1734 and it was located beside the ‘Slutwell’ near to the harbour.
There are a couple of ‘Slutwell’ Lanes in Yorkshire towns and I think they must have been water courses running down hill and taking the waste down with the water. Somebody will know the answer I’m sure, but if I am right, close to what is now East Sandgate on Sandside 'could' have been its location.
You will see on the early 20th century photograph that there was a ‘Sandside Post Office’ in the building next door to what is now the Princess Café on the corner of East Sandgate.
To return to the 1700s and at that time it would have been the ideal place for Scarborough’s first 'Post ‘House’ because the area was the busiest part of the town as well as being convenient for seafaring businesses to use whatever services were on offer. The Post Master would have had ‘runners’ to deliver local letters and messages and it would ‘not’ have been a very pleasant place for visitors to be.
Moving forward and in 1806 Scarborough’s first ‘Main Post Office’ had relocated to Palace Hill in the ‘old town’ where Nancy Hill & Nancy Morris delivered all the local ‘post’ across the town.
In the early 1820s there was a ‘stamp’ office at ‘Newborough Street’ and the Scarborough Main Post Office was situated at 14 Merchants Row with Rachael Woodhall as its Post Mistress.
In 1840 this Post Office was at the same address with John Gillott as Post Master.
The Main Post Office was to migrate to 50 Newborough into George Wheldon’s Grocery shop, which was situated between St Nicholas Street and King Street.
Then in 1852 it moved to Queen Street and again in 1881 to 19 Huntriss Row with Mr. D.T. James as the Postmaster.
In June 1910 it made its final migration to Aberdeen Walk and into the combined complex of Post Office and the GPO sorting office.
In May 2019 Scarborough’s ‘Crown’ Post Office left Aberdeen Walk to move once again and into the WH Smith store at 106–107 Westborough.
The General Post Office (GPO) had been formed as early as the 1600s and since then the Postmasters, Post Mistresses and all the staff in a town Main, or Crown Post Offices were employed by the GPO until it came under the umbrella of Royal Mail and then to a form of part virtual privatisation as it is today.
However Scarborough had and still is home to a privately owned Post Office which has its own fascinating history.
Falsgrave Road Post Office.
Falsgrave was an ancient village about half a mile from Scarborough on the old ‘Turnpike Road’ to Malton and York. The Falsgrave Post Office opened in 1845 and was one of the first ‘Sub’ Post Offices in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Why 1845? Because that was the year the railway from York to Scarborough was opened and the Falsgrave area was close to both the goods depot and passenger railway station.
From a small office dealing with letters and parcels, Falsgrave Post Office was made a ‘Money Order’ office on the 1stJanuary 1866. It was then ‘wired’ to the latest technology of the day and made a ‘Telegraph Office’ on the10th of October 1880.
In 1890 the Falsgrave Post Office was situated at 118 Falsgrave Road with Grocer Mr. W. Wybrant as the Sub-Post Master. At this time the Post Office was open for money transactions from 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday and until 8pm on Saturdays.
On Sundays it was open for the sale of stamps only from 8am to 10am.
The Falsgrave Post Office letter box was cleared at 5.30am, 9am, 12noon, 3pm, 5.15pm & 7pm. Monday to Saturday and Sunday at 9.55am only.
A letter posted to a local address in the morning would probably have been delivered in the afternoon.
In 1889 Falsgrave village had become part of the town of Scarborough and in 1909 the Post Office was renamed Falsgrave Road Post Office, just as it is today.
After moving its location at least another twice the Falsgrave Road Post Office situated among the shops on Falsgrave Road was put up for sale in 1993 when the Postmistress was wanting to retire.
The owners of the Safeway supermarket company bought it and then because they owned the Falsgrave Post Office it gave Safeways a good chance of planning success to develop the site of what had been the British Railways ‘Gallows Close’ goods yard after previous other supermarket operators were refused it.
The Falsgrave Road Post Office moved into the then new Safeway Superstore on the 27th of September 1994.
Because of the extra local customers that a Post Office brought to a large store its status had been changed from a ‘sub’ Post Office to a ‘franchised’ Post Office. So instead of the Post Master or Post Mistress being paid a salary to manage it as their own business, the owners of the Post Office now had to pay Post Office Counters Ltd to have the Post Office on their premises.
In September 1999 after five years in the Safeway store the Falsgrave Road Post Office was on the move again and returned to be part of the community of shops on Falsgrave Road.
It moved into the back of the Spar convenience store as a franchised Post Office where at the time of writing it still is.
The Falsgrave Post Office was one of the first of its kind in Yorkshire. Over the years this Post Office has been located at several local addresses and next year (2025) it will have served the local community of Falsgrave for a 180 years.
It is now one of the ‘four’ independent smaller Post Offices which are left in Scarborough, (five if you include Eastfield). They are :- Falsgrave Road Post Office, South Cliff Post Office on Ramshill Road, Newlands Post Office on Newlands Drive and Newby Post Office in the Proudfoot Store on Scalby Road.
By Keith Kitching
