It is not very clear whether the Post Office in Bishopsgate Street was entirely destroyed,—it was certainly destroyed in part. At any rate, on the 24th August 1667, nearly a year after the fire, an official notice was issued that the Kentish office had been removed "from the Round House to the Grand Office in Bishopsgate Street, for the better dispatch of business." Whether this Grand Office was in the old Black Swan or in other premises we are unable to say. These records make it tolerably clear that the Chief Post Office was still placed in Bishopsgate Street for some time subsequent to the fire.

The early locations of the Post Office in London seem to have been as follows:—

1635.—In Sherborne Lane, King William Street.

1642.—Inland Letter Office (under the Earl of Warwick) in Bartholomew Lane, at the back of the old Exchange.

Removed afterwards to Cloak Lane, Dowgate.

Removed later to the Black Swan, Bishopsgate Street, where it was at the time of the Great Fire.

Was again in Bishopsgate Street after the Great Fire.

Later it was removed to the Black Pillars in Bridges Street, Covent Garden.

In the new regulations laid down for working the posts in 1637, it was ordered that each mail should be accompanied by a label, or what would now be called a time-bill or way-bill, and that upon this label the arrivals at the several stages should be noted, instead of upon the letters or packets as had previously been done. The labels used in 1666, specimens of which exist in the Public Record Office, are curious documents. They are like a double sheet of foolscap, but longer and narrower, and are furnished with a printed heading as follows:—

FOR THE SPECIAL SERVICE AND AFFAIRS OF HIS MAJESTY.

Haste, haste.
Poste-Haste.

Whereas the Management of the Poste Stage of Letters of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is committed to my care and conduct; These are therefore in His Majesties name to require you, in your respective stages, to use all diligence and expedition in the safe and speedy conveyance of this Mail and Letters from London to ____ , and from thence to return; And hereof you are not to fail, as you will answer the contrary at your perils. Given under my hand this ____ past ____ in the morning.

To the Several Postmasters
on ____ Road.

The bills were signed in writing by Philip Frowde, the then working head of the Post Office.

The stages, and the official distances between the stages, at this time from London to Berwick, were as follows:—