Last post for city office

Exactly how many letters and parcels were delivered back then is unknown, but by the time the ornate main Post Office in St Aldate’s was opened in 1879, there were 121 postal employees in the city sorting 240 items of mail a week — of which just over a third were delivered in Oxford and its immediate neighbourhood.

These days that figure has risen to about one million items a day, all either destined for addresses in the OX post code area or posted from there – and all sorted, until very recently, by 450 postal workers in Oxford.

But from now on, Royal Mail will pick up outgoing Oxford post from letter boxes in the city, take it by lorry the 30 miles to Swindon, sort it, and – in the case of any items with Oxford addresses – bring them back up the A420 for delivery the next day.

The new system will become fully operational next week – and the 83,912 sq ft Cowley Mail Centre is up for rent.

The end of the line for mail sorting in Oxford is taking place against a backdrop of simmering discontent which, over the last couple of years, has frequently boiled over into wildcat strikes – with ordinary people often left waiting for deliveries and even, at one point, learning that mail bags full of their letters had been thrown in the Thames.

Trade union officials claim the move is part of a union bashing campaign.

Management, on the other hand, argues that the £90m reorganisation, which also involves closing the Reading sorting office, is necessary in the light of falling mail volumes as email takes over from traditional letters in envelopes, and the postal market is opened up fully to competition.

Royal Mail spokesman Richard Hall said: “The carbon footprint of this changeover will be neutral because we will only be servicing one building instead of three. And even if there are more lorry movements up and down the A420, there will be fewer overall.

“It will also be more efficient because it has enabled us to put in the latest sorting equipment at the Swindon centre, which will sort mail faster.”

But Oxfordshire Communications Workers Union (CWU) official Bob Cullen said: “They have two state-of-the-art sorting machines in Swindon that we could have done with here, but at the moment in Swindon – just at the least busy time of the year – they are working to over capacity.

“I predict there will be lot of late deliveries in Oxford come Christmas.”

He added: “There is no doubt the move is caused by union bashing.”

“It’s a sad week. I have been here 23 years but will leave on Friday. The thing is you work quite closely with workmates here and you make a lot of friends over the years.”

Of the 450 workers at the centre, 92 have transferred to Swindon, 61 to other Royal Mail jobs within Oxford (such as deliveries), 67 left through natural wasteage, five reached retirement age, one opted for a career break — and 224 took voluntary redundancy.

When the post office in St Aldate’s opened its doors for business in 1879 there were four deliveries a day, with letters in Oxford often being delivered the same day.

Back in 1784, two mail coaches a night departed from the old Angel Inn in High Street for London at 11.30pm, one via Henley and one via High Wycombe. The cost of a stamp depended on the distance the letter was travelling. The distance from Oxford to London was reckoned to be 57 miles – so early postmarks contain the figure 57.

After the introduction of the penny post in 1840, with the Penny Black, Oxford was given the postal number (or postcode) 603. Any letters posted in the city were overstamped with that number.

But in 1871 the Oxford office was mistakenly issued with an overstamper marked 613 and letters marked with the wrong number were still being sent out two years later. They are now much sought after by collectors.

Another Oxford postal peculiarity occurred in 1859 when Oxford University’s debating society, the Oxford Union, suffered a bout of stamp pilfering. The Post Office granted the society permission to overprint its penny stamps with the initials OUS between wavy lines as a precaution against theft. This was the only time the Post Office has ever given such permission, and even that was withdrawn in 1870.

Running parallel to the penny post in Oxford and Cambridge was an inter-college message service whereby the colleges issued their own stamps. This was only brought to an end in 1885 when the Post Office complained that the system infringed its monopoly.

Pillar boxes appeared in Britain in 1855. Oxford has 13 Victorian post boxes — six pillar boxes and four wall boxes — according to a recent count, with the hexagonal model in Park Town being the oldest.

But back to the future. Some may wonder exactly what sort of post will be journeying up and down the A420. Could much of it be junk mail?

Royal Mail spokesman Mr Hall said: “We do not break mail volumes down by type.”

Whatever that proportion might be, one group of workers who are not losing their jobs are at the Door to Door Opt Out Office in Oxpens Road.

Householders should write to it if they no longer want to receive junk mail delivered by Royal Mail.

But remember, if you post it in Oxford, the letter will travel 60 miles before reaching its destination.

business@oxfordmail.co.uk