Knightwick Post Office, circa 1958. The wooden beams can be seen so this was before Henry Walker had Chris Edwards in to cover the wall first with plastic and then with metal mesh followed by rendering. The reason at the time was because of all the damp that was penetrating through the wood and brickwork. A lot of work was carried out around this time with new electricity and the new water main passing by also allowed one of the bedrooms to be changed in to a bathroom, with the cess pit dug out and installed in the field behind the Post Office. Until then we only had an outside lavatory and that was just two large tin barrels with toilet seats on the top, which had to be emptied when full and then dad would dig holes in the field behind to bury the waste. For bath times mum would plug a free standing boiler on and when the water was hot enough it would be bailed out in to an old tin bath. So when we had the bathroom installed it was luxury, with piped in hot water and a flush toilet. Before the tin baths hip baths were used as these were hanging in one of the out houses when I was younger. Dad had tried to make things a bit more modern prior to having the bathroom and in what we called our little kitchen, which was accessed through the side door of the house, he had installed a ceramic bath and this was all boxed in so mum could use the top of it as a work top and when it came to bath time the top would hinge up and this again was filled with the hot water from the free standing electric boiler.

Today the wall is back to its original beams jus like in the photograph

 

 ©peh