Working life in the late 19th century

In the late 19th century the development of the Mount Pleasant site was driven by the growth in Britain’s annual parcel traffic (from 22 million when Parcel Post began in 1883, to 43 million in 1891). In December 1891 a local newspaper reported that operating floor space at the Mount was now over 70,000 square feet (considerably larger than a football pitch).

Working life was far from cheery in these early days. A writer for the Post Office Magazine in 1895 tells how "disappointment filled all our minds when we heard that the prison was to be our permanent abode". The author, Mr C Denyer, talks of a "rapid and startling increase in sickness due to the imperfect ventilation… and [unsuccessful] efforts to improve the building".

Numerous relics of the prison days remained visible: "The cells, the Roman Catholic Chapel, the photographic room, the corridors haunted with memories of forgotten crimes, and the rotunda with the wide view from its roof over northern London – but there is little of interest now left… only the bare gloominess of the thick walls and the cold stone passages are left to suggest the past".

In 1900, the London Letter Post Office transferred to the Mount from St Martins le Grand. The Times was at least able to commend the new building for having "plenty of windows, solid warm floors, a lining of glazed tiles and every arrangement to counteract the dark and smoke of London".

The Times thought much less of the view from the outside, and speculated that "... the genius of the place has been too strong for the architect. The frowning walls and bare cells of Coldbath Fields Prison may have entered into his soul and prevented the conception of any beauty of line or dignity of form. As it is, the new General Post Office must be considered architecturally as a commodious shed".

It certainly needed to be commodious: by 1900 70,000 parcels and packets were handled at Mount Pleasant each day, with an estimated daily total of 190,000 items over the Christmas period of 1897. A newspaper article reported on the strangest of those 'festive' parcels, which had either burst open or demanded investigation due to smell or appearance: "A hamper of live leeches, for instance, seems a strange Boxing Day gift. As does an artificial leg… Another evil-smelling hamper was found to contain no fewer than 300 dead mice; while yet a another enclosed a defunct puppy".

As it entered the 20th century, Mount Pleasant was being referred to as 'probably the largest sorting office in the world'. It may not have been pleasing to the eye, but it continued to grow in physical size and operational importance.