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The Old Post Office
A HISTORY OF WITHAM
WALK 2 THE VILLAGE OF CHIPPING HILL
OLD HOUSE - 43 1400 -1500s home in 1934 to Madam Elicia of London, a clairvoyant, palmist and crystal reader.
The house originally extended further west, but this part was demolished to provide space for the Victorian pair (numbers 47 and 49) built in 1897.
1. 1841 CHIPPINGHILL (South Side) Nos 43 & 45 (Formerly listed as 7.10.64. No 29 (Old House) and TL 8115 3/12 11.3.50. No 31 and Post Office under Road to Powershall End) II GV
2. A C15-C16 timber framed and plastered house altered in the C17, with a cross wing at the north-west end. The upper storey is jettied on the north front, on brackets. The windows are mainly casements (C20) with leaded lights. An early C19 double-fronted shop front with glazing bars has been built but out under the cross wing jetty. The centre part has a C15-C16 frame with a crown post roof and the cellar is partly built of flint rubble. Roof tiled, with 1 gabled dormer at the north-west end. The house has been renovated in the C20. RCHM (14).
IMAGES OF ENGLAND
JANET GYFORD
Chipping Hill post office, 1914. This was run by Mrs Caroline Doole, and also sold grocery and sweets. The house to the left of it had its occupants 'pea-picking' at the time when the photograph was taken. Doole's was remembered by some as 'a bit posh', but Fred Cook, one of their errand boys in his youth, found that they were good payers. When the last post was leaving at 7 p.m. a whistle was blown, and people could run out to hand over their letters.
TOM'S NOTES ON MY CHIPPING HILL TOUR NOTES.
The Old Post Office was a general store and post office until a date in the 1950s.