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100 years of High Flags
High Flags in 1900. Note the small window panes in
the shop window, compared to the three photos below taken in later years. Immediately below, Edmund Bickell was the Postmaster at the time.
Although this is a black and white photo, the whole
building - house as well as shop - was painted a dark maroon at the time. This picture was taken in 1965, and though the name on the shop is Wardle, it was
already under the ownerships of Mr and Mrs Rose.
This was the Post Office two years after the picture
above. So 1967 and back to the colour favoured at the turn of the century!
2005 - with the natural brick on show as the entire
building becomes a private house.
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Mr and Mrs Wardle ran the village post office from this building from the 1930s and
into the 1960s. It was also a general store - including the selling of sugar (in real sugar-paper bags, with the sugar weighed out) and breaded ham cut by Mr Wardle. The black and white picture above was
taken shortly after Mr and Mrs Rose had taken over, though it still shows the Wardle name in the blanked out 'window' above the door. The colour photograph shows the Post Office a couple of years later (1967).
Rumour has it that the property was originally built by two brothers who had a
disagreement about how many storeys their new building should have, consequently ending up with the three storey eastern end, and two-storey western end! In 1851 this building was occupied by Hercules Barnett,
grocer and draper.
In that year, also, the “window tax” was repealed. This was a tax on glass (based on the assumption that the more windows a house had, the more likely it was that the people inside were rich), resulting in houses having ‘blanked off’ windows - could this be the reason for the bricked up windows to the left, and above the shop doorway? It is thought that the Post Office was begun in Winteringham by Hercules Barnett in 1846 (according to the website “Reynolds Collectors World - see
link at bottom of this page). By the time of the 1861 Census, Hercules was a widower of 85, and although he was listed as a grocer, his daughter Elizabeth (35) was stated as a ‘shop keeper’.A nurse, Ann Parker was
also resident in the house, along with Anna Mumby a house servant. Hercules died in January 1864. His daughter married the local Schoolmaster Edmund Bickell,
and he became the village postmaster. By 1912, when the Guide to Winteringham was written, Mr Bickell had lived in the village for “upwards of 55 years” - spending
earlier years as the village schoolmaster, before taking over the Post Office. The 1912 Guide tells us: “It may be interesting to note that Mr. Edmund Bickell, the
Postmaster, before mentioned, was for some time Schoolmaster in the Village of Miss Charlotte Bronte's home at Haworth and Mr. Bickell has vivid recollections of Miss Bronte.”
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The modern picture to the left shows the old Post Office now converted into a house, with the old-style telephone
box secured as a listed building! The stamp (above) shows a Winteringham frank from Mr Bickell’s time.
Of this shop, Elaine Harrison says: The Post Office was
run by Mr & Mrs Wardle. It was a Post Office on the right side of the shop and a sweet shop cum stationary on the left hand side. I remember my brother going in one day
and innocently saying "What sort of sweets do you have?" and Mr Wardle replying "Allsorts" to which Maurice replied "I'll have a quarter of them then" He must have sold sugar
as well because I can remember him weighing it out in blue paper sugar bags. He also weighed out 2 oz or 4 oz of sweets in greaseproof paper packets like an ice cream cone. Christine Hammond tells us: I remember the
Wardles having the Post Office. Their back garden ran parallel to ours and we horrible children thought it hilarious that Mr Wardle would serenade Mrs Wardle on his violin
on warm summer evenings. We would hide and giggle. I ran errands for Mrs Tom Burkill and went around to the Post Office each Saturday morning to get her ½ lb Wine Gums and some Custard Creams.
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Winteringham’s old-style telephone kiosk
enjoyed listed-building status. Here pictured in 1990, at one time it was one of the “points” for the local village policeman, and in the days of “Press button B” in the
1950s it could be used to access the Hull Telephone Service record-playing facility - a forerunner of the modern telephone services!
