Early history of site
The Post Office (Former) is located at the corner of the intersection of Manukau Road and Kimberley Road, Epsom within the central part of the Auckland isthmus. The site lies to the southwest of Mt St John (Te Kopuke), a prominent pa said to have been occupied by Waiohua peoples under the leadership of Kiwi Tamaki in the early 1700s. Mt St John was part of the broader Auckland isthmus taken over by Ngati Whatua in the mid-eighteenth century preceding Auckland’s founding as colonial capital in 1840.
Subdivided into farms as early as 1842, the wider Epsom area became renowned for its large country homes and later as a prestigious residential suburb. The site on which the post office was later built straddled the boundary of Crown Grants made in 1842 to a John Scott, who erected a house known as Bird Grove. The Bird Grove block was subdivided in 1900 to create Kimberley Road. Suburban development in Epsom accelerated with the introduction of electric trams in 1903.
The Crown purchased the site at the corner of Kimberley and Manukau Roads in December 1907. From 1840, Manukau Road had been the main link between the major ports at Onehunga and Auckland. The site was also in a residential area of projected population growth. Representations for a location in the vicinity of a tram barn to the south, where there were a number of shops and a hotel, were rejected on account of the greater distance to the nearest post office at Newmarket.
Previous postal facilities in Epsom had included a temporary office opened in 1849; a more permanent structure possibly on the site of Bird Grove (1882-1900); and a telephone office and telegraph bureau opened some distance away in 1896, which became a post receiving office in January 1898. The new post office was evidently intended to be a more permanent solution. Its location was a comparatively prestigious one, being close to a bronze statue of Sir John Logan Campbell (1817-1912) - ‘The Father of Auckland’ - which had been unveiled at the entrance to Cornwall Park in 1906. Cornwall Park was a large and popular recreational area that had been gifted by Campbell to the people of New Zealand in 1901, during a visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall.
Construction of Epsom Post Office (1909)
The Epsom Post Office opened in November 1909, the year a permanent police presence was also established in Epsom. The symmetrically composed façade of the new, two-storey structure provided the focal point at the northern termination of Campbell Crescent, the green space occupied by the Campbell monument at the Manukau Road entrance of Cornwall Park.
Epsom’s Post Office was erected during a one and a half decade post office construction boom commenced in circa 1900. Postmaster general and later the Prime Minister from 1906, Joseph Ward had overseen the introduction of penny postage in January 1901 and was a strong advocate of the Post and Telegraph Department as an agency designed to draw the disparate towns and settlements into an interconnected nation.
As post office construction increased, Government Architect John Campbell (1857-1942) took steps to develop and standardise a broad range of post office forms. The three basic ‘models’ created included post offices for small suburban and provincial centres, and less modest buildings for the main street of the larger provincial towns. By virtue of the number of post offices erected throughout New Zealand during this period, Campbell is credited with having established the Imperial Baroque as the appropriate architectural style for government buildings. With few exceptions, small suburban and provincial post offices were a one or two storey block with hipped roof and central gable and were three bays wide giving a completed building of about 9 metres by 10 metres.
The Epsom Post Office was designed under Campbell’s supervision by the Auckland Division of the Public Works Department (PWD). In 1908 the Auckland District Engineer received a sketch plan for the purpose of preparing plans and specifications. An initial design providing more accommodation was amended to reduce cost and was approved by Campbell in November 1908 with requested alterations. Tenders were called the following March for a contract costing £1332. The two-storey brick building had a Marseilles-tiled hipped roof and was finished with rough-cast cement plaster and red cement plaster dressings. In keeping with the customary nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial practice, the structure consisted both of a public office (the Post Office) downstairs; and a private residence upstairs (the postmistress’ accommodation).
Internally, the ground floor of the building contained a public vestibule with posting boxes, a public office, telephone bureau, mail room, telephone room, small strong room and a private box lobby accessed via a separate front entrance. The postmistress’ residence on the upper floor, reached by a private side entrance, consisted of a sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and pantry. Domestic and office conveniences including a washhouse, lavatories and a bicycle shed were provided in separate outbuildings to the rear. The Epsom Post Office was evidently unusual in having a garden. The appointment of Kaeo postmistress Mrs Lillie Boardman to the Epsom position reflected the social acceptability of post office work as a respectable avenue of employment for women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The Epsom Post Office was one of a small number of post offices of a transitional design that incorporated a central gable (a traditional feature); with entrances in the two front side bays (a new departure). The structure lacked the tripartite composition of earlier twentieth century post office models, such as the facility erected at Onehunga in 1902. The decoration of the exterior of the Epsom building was comparatively restrained, as the three bays were treated equally, with paired windows (rather than an entrance) set in the central bay. Signage incorporated into the façade was of Art Nouveau script rather than the more traditional Roman lettering. From circa 1910, soon after the building was completed, new post offices were sometimes designed with segmental pediments rather than simple timber gables.
The Epsom Post Office was built by Devonport-based building contractor William Ball (c.1882-1933) who had recently arrived in New Zealand. English-born Ball lived in South Africa and South Australia prior to moving to Auckland and, although a bricklayer by trade, soon branched out into building work. Epsom Post Office was one of his early contracts and required remedial works following completion. Ball later became a president of the Auckland Builders’ and Contractors’ Association and was evidently a frequent arbitrator in disputes affecting building contracts.
Subsequent use and modification
The early twentieth-century provision of substantial brick buildings housing post and telegraph facilities in many of New Zealand’s towns and cities coincided with the transition from colony to Dominion in 1907. The Liberal administration’s expansion of the civil service and state regulation had previously created twelve new government departments, leading some to complain that New Zealand was drifting towards government by bureaucracy. As departmental buildings, post offices were the face of the government in the community and conveyed a greater sense of formality than agencies based in private shops, residences or hotels. Over the years, although not all offered all services, post offices provided postal, telephone and telegraph services, savings bank facilities, an agency for the acceptance of licence fees and payment of taxes, and places where government forms could be completed, witnessed and lodged. As the one place where people called regularly, local post offices were informal meetings places and points of social interaction. The postmaster or postmistress was held in high regard, and was the main channel of information from the government to the people.
In 1915, on account of prevalent typhoid fever in Epsom, the two earth closet lavatories were converted to water closets. Minor fire damage occurred to the upstairs bathroom in 1918, the cost of repair being repaid by the postmistress in instalments. Electric lighting replaced gas lighting in 1924.
Growing motor vehicle registrations and other services, such as the 1934 establishment of a school savings branch of the Post Office Savings Bank, put local post offices under increasing pressure. Election of the first Labour Government in 1935 greatly increased state involvement in the provision of social and other services following the Great Depression of the early 1930s, with new measures such as a universal social security system introduced in 1938.
To cope with increasing business, the Epsom Post Office was extended. A single-storey flat-roofed addition was erected on the north side of the building. The southernmost entrance (to the private mail lobby) in front of the mail room was also blocked off.
Other external alterations included removal of the Art Nouveau lettering. The gable facing Manukau Road was replaced by a screen parapet. The remaining front doorway was remodelled in a Stripped Classical style common for state buildings designed during the two decades commencing circa 1923, a period during which John Mair (1876-1959) held the post of Government Architect. External remodelling integrated elements of the structure’s earlier design, such as its windows, with a more modern overall appearance. In many public buildings erected in the late 1930s and 1940s, the progressive ideas of the first Labour Government were reflected in the use of more forward-looking architectural forms. The contract let to J.R. Simpson and completed by 2 July 1937, was supervised by the PWD District Engineer. Pressing need to provide office accommodation for the Labour Government’s expanding civil service led to the general employment of private sector architects for new post offices built at Avondale, Grey Lynn and Devonport.
The presence of the Alexandra Park trotting centre, Showgrounds, the Auckland Teachers College, Epsom Tram Depot, Auckland Transport Board and the Green Lane and Mercy hospitals in Epsom as well as a number of businesses on Manukau Road, contributed to the overall business of the Epsom Post Office. During the Second World War (1939-45) a number of military headquarters, including the Combined Operational Headquarters, were Epsom-based. At this time, and during the First World War (1914-18), the death of relatives in military service would have been conveyed to local families by telegram.
In 1950 the residential accommodation on the first floor was modified to provide an indoor lavatory, and better kitchen facilities. However outbuildings also remained in general use. Those serving the post office were located within the southern area of the rear yard. On the north side of a dividing fence, a three-roomed outbuilding (laundry, storage or wood shed, and a laundry) serviced the residence. A picket fence erected in 1909 survived along the front boundary on either side of the building. At the rear of the building, the ground level of the private yard was raised to enable the postmaster’s car to park off the street.
Concerned at the cramped space in which the postal staff of nine postmen and a mail sorter was required to work, the postmaster suggested in 1958 that the residential quarters above the office could be converted to accommodate the Postmen’s Branch. Brief consideration was given in 1960 to construction of an addition at the southeast corner of the building to expand mailroom accommodation. Neither project proceeded.
Changing methods of payment of social welfare benefits, rapid advances in telecommunication technology, and increasing computer use reduced demand for local post office services. Government economic reforms resulted in the corporatisation of the New Zealand Post Office in 1986. Thereafter services were provided by three entities: New Zealand Post Limited; Post Bank Limited; and Telecommunications New Zealand Limited. The 1,100 post offices open in 1987 operated under a large subsidy, surrendered the following year. Many closed to be replaced by a post delivery centre.
Conversion to private use
The Epsom Post Office evidently underwent strengthening work in the mid-1980s which may have coincided with removal of the chimneys. After April 1989 mail was cleared directly to the Auckland Mail Service Centre. Finding the seven-decade-old brick building uneconomic, New Zealand Post relocated their facilities closer to the Green Lane intersection in 1990. Following the closure of the post office facilities and sale of the building into private ownership, architects Robert Patterson and Associates were commissioned to design single-storey additions to provide further office space. A garage was also added. During modernisation of the building, interior detailing including pressed metal ceilings is said to have been removed. In its new form, the former post office housed activities including an advertising agency, and later a real estate agency.