The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

It is not therefore merely a fancy of my own that for the first time London possesses in King Edward's Building a head post office which is worthy of her, and which bears the same relations to the London district as the post office in Liverpool does to the Liverpool district. London is the biggest city in the world; it now possesses the biggest post office in the world. That is as it should be. It is London's chief office in a way that the old building never was. It has been built for London, and is fitted up entirely to meet the needs of London. Nobody who knows the old building could have said this of the inconvenient and out-of-date structure which was built for other times and other purposes. The site of the new building covers ground which up to the beginning of the thirteenth century was one of the numerous vacant spaces in the north-west portion of the area enclosed by the Roman wall which went round the City of London. This wall, it is conjectured, was built between A.D. 350 and A.D. 369, only about half a century before Rome withdrew her legions from Britain. It belongs, therefore, to the later period of the Roman occupation of this country. A large section of this wall was discovered by the workmen when digging the foundations for King Edward's building, and it extended for about 400 feet. Most of this had to be destroyed and carried away, but a fine bastion at the western angle has been preserved, and can be inspected by visitors. The wall is built in the usual Roman method, and is composed of Kentish ragstone from the Maidstone district. In the ditch which ran outside the wall were discovered a number of Norman and mediæval relics, and within the wall many Roman remains. The section of wall laid bare by the workmen was found underneath the playground and dining-hall of Christ's Hospital, known to us all as the Bluecoat School. The school removed from the building some years ago into the country, and the site was then sold and divided between Bartholomew's Hospital and the General Post Office.