Early Days
From early times,
street letter deliveries were twice a day and on Saturday mornings. A letter posted in the morning would generally arrive
in the afternoon!
With the establishment of the network of Mail Exchanges across Melbourne in the 1960s, maiil deliveries to
suburban street addresses were reduced to once a dayl and Satuday deliveries were abandoned.
Mail was delivered by Postmen, riding red-painted bikes, who would blow their whistles at the front gate if
a letter had arrived!
Mont Albert Post Office opened
in 1914, located in Hamilton St.
It moved to
its present site at 1A Hamilton St in the 1970s.
A
Post Office opened in Mont Albert North in 1957, and closed in 1993.
In 1928, Melbourne was divided into several Postal Districts, known as Central, South Central, North, South, East,
and West-South East.
The Surrey Hills/Box Hill/Mont
Albert areas were in the East District, and designated:
E10 Mont Albert, Surrey Hills, Surrey Hills North, Surrey Hills South,
E11 Box Hill
E12 Mont Albert North, Box Hill North
In 1967, The Post Office introduced national Postcodes, and those serving this area are:
3127 Surrey Hills, Mont Albert (shared with Boroondara)
3128 Box Hill
3129 Mont Albert North
In 1861, the first
Post Office opened in Biox Hill, from Silas Padgham's Store on the cnr of Whitehorse Rd and Station St.
In 1911, the old Post Office was replaced by a new red brick building
on the same location, which also housed the State Bank.
The main Post Office and sorting office in Box Hill was on the cnr of Station St and Whitehores Rds.
The Post
Ofice left this building in 1983 and relocated its customer-facng services to a new site in the newly built Whitehorse
Plaza shopping cente in Carrington Rd, The commercial Mail Centre was relocated in a new building in Nelson rd, just arouhd
the corner from Whitehorse Rd. Many customers with PO Boxes in the old building were inconvienced, when the Boxes were
moved to the new commercial centre in Nelson Rd,
Mail
for Mont Albert came from the Box Hill Centre, as at present..
The Surrey Hills Post Office was on the cnr of Union and Canterbury Rds - in the 1990s a new PO started in Union
Rd in the main shopping strip. The old PO building has been demolished.
The numbers of street letter boxes have been steadily declining since the 1970s. It is interesting to note that a
letter box near the author's home, on the cnr of Mont Albert Rd and View St has survived for several decades, and was there
as far back as 1959!
