After 307 years, is this the last post?
World’s oldest mail office may close within months
THE world’s oldest working post office may be closed for good – as its owners are having to retire next spring.
Serving the same small town since 1712, it began life as a staging post for mail carriages crossing the English-Scottish border.
When it opened its doors Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, was on the throne. Electricity would not be discovered for another 100 years.
The current owners of Sanquhar Post Office will soon retire due to ill-health next May – and if a buyer cannot be found, the story ends there.
Officially recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest post office in the world, it serves a community of 2,000 in the countryside north of Dumfries in south-west Scotland. It is also, naturally, a major attraction for stamp collectors.
The current owners are Dr Manzoor Alam, 77, and his wife Nazra, 67. Dr Alam is a former NHS doctor who bought the branch five years ago, inspired by his own love of stamp collecting and the postal system.
Mrs Alam, a former nurse, said: ‘This post office provides an awful lot of services. We still do banking, car taxes and people pay their bills here. It keeps the town going and has served the community well.
‘I’m going to be heartbroken if it doesn’t sell and continue as a post office. If my health was better I’d carry on but I’ve got to call it a day now. It’s really sad.’
She says the branch performs a crucial role because there has been only one bank in the town since the local Royal Bank of Scotland closed in 2014.
Sanquhar predates the world’s second- oldest post office, in Stockholm, Sweden, by eight years. The third oldest, in Santiago, Chile, opened in 1772.
In 307 years at Sanquhar there have been only 16 postmasters and mistresses, with a single family, the Hogarths, taking on the role for much of the 20th century. Mrs Alam said: ‘This is a piece of history. There are a lot of memories attached. It is crucial to our nation’s heritage to keep this going.’
The branch is on the market for £275,000 and comes with a three-bedroom cottage.
Mrs Alam insists it is a viable business. ‘When we bought it, it wasn’t necessarily to make money,’ she said. ‘We bought it to preserve it and keep it going for its historic value. But let’s put it this way, I’m not out of pocket. Communities across the country still love the Post Office. We have folk come in from other villages because [we’re] not in a supermarket. We are made for what they want. We aren’t all [cluttered] like big shops.
‘We have very knowledgeable staff and they focus on what the customers want.’
Mrs Alam and her husband will be moving to Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands to spend time with family.
She added: ‘The last five years have been very enjoyable but I hope to put my feet up when I move back south.’ Duncan Close, chairman of Sanquhar and District community council, said: ‘We’re sorry to see them go and it’s sad to think we could lose our post office. We will do everything we can to ensure it does find a buyer.’
Local councillor Andrew Wood added: ‘It’ll be a sad day if it does close. Post offices are a lifeline for the elderly. It’s not just about collecting pensions, it’s about meeting other people.’
The Daily Mail has successfully campaigned for the Government and the Post Office to save branches hit by funding cuts which have forced many postmasters to sell up.
On Monday, it was announced that postmasters would receive an average £3,200 salary boost in a bid to halt the trend.
And last week, Barclays reversed its decision to stop its customers withdrawing cash from post offices after the Mail highlighted how the decision would hit thousands of people.
‘If my health was better I’d carry on’
WheRe’S the bloody bank?!’ exclaims mother- of-three Laila Speller as she is confronted by a ‘cash only’ sign in a pie shop. The 36-year- old is not the only one asking that question on Rochester’s bustling high Street. As recently as five years ago, it had four banks. Now there are none.
Only a post office and tourism centre with limited opening hours still offer free access to cash, while there are several ATMs charging between £1 and £2 for withdrawals.
It is a remarkable vanishing act for a town that’s home to around 63,000 people, an imposing Norman castle and england’s second-oldest cathedral.
In fact, it is now being considered as part of a £1 million scheme aimed at funding free-to-use ATMs in so-called ‘cash deserts’. ATM network Link is promising to install at least 50 new ATMs across the UK and is encouraging communities to get in touch. It has received around 150 requests since it launched last month.
But critics have described the ‘request an ATM’ service as a ‘tiny bandage on a massive wound’, because cash machines are being axed at a rate of 300 a month.
Towns such as Rochester are crying out for major surgery — so is it enough?
NO CASH FOR THE PIE AND MASH
The Speller family are one of many to have come from neighbouring Medway towns to enjoy Rochester’s glut of pubs, cafes and old-fashioned english eateries.
husband Michael, 36, says it is not the first time they have been caught short by a lack of cash.
The Dickens Festival is the town’s Christmas celebration of the Victorian author whose upbringing in the area inspired many of his novels. Last year, it was a nightmare.
‘No one had any money,’ says Michael. ‘ It’s a big Christmas festival, so all the visitors assumed there would be banks they could go to. There was such a rush for cash that all the ATMs ran out of money, so everyone had to go to the machine at the train station.
‘Then that ran out of money as there were so many people. The queues were ridiculous. We had to lend money to people. It was a drama.’
Rochester does not meet Link’s criteria for a new free-to-use ATM because of its post office and tourism centre, but its application is still being considered due to a high volume of letters.
One of these came from 58-yearold resident Peter Burch. Peter, an airline pilot, fears Rochester could get left behind in Britain’s move towards a cashless society.
‘The banks are having their cake and eating it,’ he says. ‘When ATMs were introduced, they made a massive saving by reducing counter staff.
‘Now they want to make even further savings, cut us adrift, or even make money by charging us to access our own.’
Industry figures show that there were 52,358 free-to-use machines operating in the UK at the end of 2018. Another 11,002 pay-to-use machines were also in place.
A total of 2.4 billion withdrawals were made from these machines last year, with £193 billion cash being taken out.
HUNDREDS MORE CLOSE EVERY YEAR
MORe than 500 free-to-use ATMs have closed across the South east in the past year alone, according to consumer group Which?
Bank branches are shutting at a rate of 55 a month across the UK, taking cash machines with them.
Rochester has seen 78 shops close since its first bank shut five years ago, according to the Local Data Company, so a free-to-use cash machine would be a boon to local businesses such as Sweet expectations, a ‘ye olde’ sweet shop.
Manager Lynne Smitham insists on a £5 minimum spend on cards because profits on smaller sales are wiped out by commission fees.
But this can be an issue for a shop in which customers may just fancy some lemon sherbets. ‘Since the cash machines went, we’ve had complaints about the minimum spend and lack of access to free cash,’ says Lynne, 50.
‘I would say “yes please” to a new ATM. It would be good for everything and everyone. A lot of people who used to come to us regularly knew that there were two to three banks on the high Street where they could get their cash out. Now they’re gone because they’ve got
no cash.’ Fortunately for the Speller family, Michael does — it’s pie and mash all round.
ATMS IN BOOZERS? WE’LL DRINK TO THAT
THE historic village of Elham in the kent Downs has a fine record of keeping things safe. It is thought that king Charles II and the Duke of Richmond hid in the fireplace of The Abbot’s Fireside hotel in the High Street while fleeing the Roundheads in the 1600s.
Now, a few yards down the road, the kings Arms pub is harbouring another endangered species: a free-to-use cash machine.
It was installed two weeks ago in a separate scheme run by Link to help communities abandoned by banks and post offices.
With a population of around 1,500, Elham has never been big enough to have its own bank. The nearest branch is around ten miles away, in Canterbury.
But this wasn’t so much of a problem until the village post office disappeared a year ago — taking with it the residents’ only access to cash.
This was followed by the closure of the tea room that had housed it. That left three pubs, a hotel, a newsagent and a beautician. Their trade is fuelled largely by tourists and ramblers.
kings Arms landlord Andy House, 55, says everything is running like clockwork. Most small businesses that operate a cash machine charge a fee because they have to top it up with their own cash. But Andy’s is run entirely through operator Cardtronics.
He points gleefully at his shiny new toy and says: ‘It’s not costing me a penny and it’s no extra hassle. When the machine is running out of cash, they send somebody round to fill it up.
‘It is totally an amenity for the village. Of course, if people want to stop and buy a pint, I’m not going to stop them.’
The ATM is just the third to be installed in Link’s financial inclusion programme, which identifies communities that do not have free access to cash in a 1km radius.
And it has gone down well with the punters. Maureen Whiteman, 71, and her husband Bob, 74, are among the first to arrive at the start of a busy lunch hour.
They have been coming to the kings Arms for several years during walks from their home in Hythe, around ten miles away.
‘It’s a really good idea to put an ATM in a pub, because a lot of people come here,’ says Maureen. ‘In Hythe, all the banks have closed apart from one Nationwide. You’re getting fewer places where you can withdraw cash. It’s pretty much down to the post offices these days — but when they close, where do you go?’
Outside, gardener David Monks, 52, says: ‘I’d like free ATMs because if I do want to get cash outside the hours of the post office, I’m obliged to drive into Canterbury.
‘As an older person, I prefer using cash. It’s easier to keep track of what I have and haven’t got. I think it’s a good idea and helps the pub.’
FEARS SHOPS WILL BE BROKEN INTO
BACk in Rochester, Emma Jupp, 24, whose family own the Cathedral Pie House, says she would welcome a new cash machine — but not in her shop. Retailers in Rochester High Street aren’t allowed shutters, so security is a concern.
‘If you put it in someone’s shop, they will get broken into,’ she says. ‘We’ve been broken into for the till.’
Walmer, a small town near Dover, has been identified as one of six sites that meet Link’s criteria for a new, free-to-use ATM.
The network is now trying to find a site to house it. But they might have their work cut out.
Town & Country Stores, one of the sites supposedly in the running, was ram-raided for its cash machine in 2000. Owner Margaret Patel, 54, says that rules her out.
There is still an ATM that charges for withdrawals in the town’s other newsagent, and that seems to suffice for the majority of Walmer’s 8,000 residents who tend to take the 20-minute bus ride to Deal to do their shopping.
Ciara Lanphier, 44, who works in the local pharmacy, has never felt the need for an ATM.
She says: ‘It puts it on the shop. The insurance gets ridiculous and that’s why shops are removing them. They keep getting ramraided. Who is going to put up with that?’
Dean Goodchild, 52, has just taken over the butcher’s, which used to be the Queen Mother’s meat supplier when she was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. She had a particular fondness for sausages, apparently. Dean allows subjects of the Crown to pay by card, so an ATM has no use to him.
He says: ‘People will come in anyway because they can pay by card. It’s never been an issue. This place has been here for more than 150 years.’ The lone voice is Jane Ward, who runs Jane’s Tearooms. Her bakery is cash-only and, like the sweet shop, sells a lot of small items worth only a bob or two. The 62-year-old says losing the post office has had a noticeable effect on her business. ‘My takings are down since the post office went,’ she adds. ‘People used to go to the post office and then come here, but now they just go to Deal. The business will be viable until I retire, because I’ve been here for 20- odd years, but, unless things alter, it probably won’t go on for ever.’
It is small, traditional businesses such as Jane’s bakery, ye olde sweet shops, and pubs which suffer the most from poor access to cash.
Many may think they can get by unperturbed by this, popping in and out of these English institutions as an occasional luxury. But they are disappearing fast.
Residents might not know what they’ve got until it has gone.