9 Hitchin Road - Upper Caldecote Post Office

Upper Caldecote Post Office July 2007

In 1927, in common with the rest of Bedfordshire, Upper Caldecote was valued for rates under the Rating Valuation Act 1925. Every piece of land and building was valued and the valuer noted of the Post Office [DV1/C/5] that it lay at 13 Hitchin Road, which has since been renumbered as 9 Hitchin Road. The owner and occupier was Emma Elizabeth Milton, postmistress and grocer.

The brick and slate "good and modern (1912)" building comprised: a reception room; a living room; a scullery and pantry and three bedrooms. there was an outside W. C. Water was laid on to house whic had a small garden, an outside pantiled dairy, a pony stable and cart shed, a pantiled coal shed and store shed. The internal measurements of the shop were 11 feet 9 inches wide by 14 feet 3 inches deep.

Directories list postmasters and mistresses of Upper Caldecote from 1894. Directories were not published each year and so one can only list the first and last directories in which one was listed, which were as follows:

1894 to 1898: George Ball;
1903 to 1906: Mary Ann Maudlin;
1910 to 1936: Emma Milton;
1940: Elizabeth Maud Harwood.

Ordnance Survey maps show that the previous post office lay further south of Hitchin Road. It lay on the site of today's Number 40.