New Post Office For Rushden

Automatic Telephone Exchange Among Important Future Developments

  First news of important developments due to take place in the centre of Rushden within the next few years is available this week and centres round the plans of the G.P.O.

  The handsome Post Office which for nearly 40 years has served the town in the central position at the junction of High-street and College-street is to be vacated, and a new and larger building erected on an equally convenient site.

  Mr. C. H. Cunnington, postmaster at Rushden, has confirmed that the present premises will not be retained when the lease expires but he is not yet able to announce the location of the new premises.  The site, however, is bound to be one that will allow the authorities to provide much greater facilities than those now in existence, and one of the main considerations will be the inclusion of an automatic telephone exchange, bringing Rushden into line with those places in the county which already enjoy the advantages of the most modern telephone system.  The present exchange on the first floor of the Post Office buildings is incapable of carrying the heavy apparatus which would be required for automatic working.

  Other requirements in the new office will be garages and workshops and the public offices must be designed with a view to coping with Rushden’s continual growth.

  The present office, which in external appearance is second to none in the district, was built by the late Mr. Arthur Cave and leased by him to the G.P.O.  It was the policy at that time to encourage the building of such offices by private enterprise, but the new buildings will be erected and owned by the G.P.O.

  It is understood that the lease expires within the next few years and that the new office will be open in a years’ time at the latest.

  A section of the present building is occupied by the Midland Bank and it is learned that the Bank will stay and use for its own purposes the whole of the Post Office premises.

  The first Midland Bank at Rushden opened at 61, High-street, on November 26, 1900, but the building was destroyed by fire in 1901, and temporary premises were used until occupation of the present building on May 27, 1903, with Mr. Smith in charge.

  Mr. O. A. H. Muxlow has been the manager since 1920, and the position of the business is revealed in the Bank’s readiness to take over the postal section of the building and will of course, be reconstructed and brought thoroughly up-to-date.

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