Cribbs Causeway Post Office.
Although some of the Bristol district villages are situated at a long distance from town and remote from main roads, yet only one of the Post Offices presents the primitive condition of having a thatched roof. None of the rural postmen now avail themselves on their journeys of the services of that faithful creature, the donkey; but the last animal so used was on the road until 1890, when its master, poor Sims, the Congresbury to Shipham postman, shuffled off this mortal coil. Times change, and our manners change with them; so also do our tests for gold coins. At the Wrington Post Office there are brass testing weights, for sovereigns and half-sovereigns, inscribed "Royal Mint, 1843," such as have not been observed by the writer at any other Post Office, either in the Bristol district or in London. A certain sub-postmistress in the district has for many years been in the habit of keeping her sheets of reserve postage stamps in a large Family Bible. Not that she is irreverent—indeed, she is a pious woman,—but, being a lone widow, she has kept them in that manner for safety, as she imagines that no burglar would look for them in such a depository.
Mr. Edward Biddle.
(Sub-Postmaster of Rudgeway.)
Photographed by Mr. Protheroe, Narrow Wine Street, Bristol, from an oil painting.
A notable man in his day was Edward Biddle, on the Thornbury side of Bristol. Mr. Biddle was sub-postmaster of Rudgeway for over forty years, and occupied the post until his death in 1889, at the ripe age of 91 years, when he was succeeded by his daughter, and she, in turn, was succeeded by his son, William Biddle, who still holds the appointment. Prior to becoming sub-postmaster, Mr. Edward Biddle was "Pike" keeper at Stone, and used to pay £752 per annum for his post. There he had to open his gate
to no fewer than twenty mail coaches daily, on their way between Bristol and Gloucester. At Rudgeway he carried on the joint occupation of sub-postmaster and innkeeper, at a tavern where the Post Office business had been conducted for many years before he succeeded to it; but the innkeeping business had in course of time to be given up, under Post Office regulations. Mr. Elstone, of Alveston House, wrote expressing his satisfaction that the Post Office was to be carried on at a private house, and not as previously at a "roadside pothouse," which all the district considered a very improper place. At that time John Blann and other stage carriers drove their unwieldy waggons, drawn by four strong cart-horses at a walking pace, along the Gloucester turnpike road. The waggons were indeed the goods trains of olden times. The present sub-postmaster, the son of Edward Biddle, who has had for many years to use "Shanks's" pony in the delivery of letters, was engaged in olden times in going on horseback down to the Passage to take, in saddlebags, the mails for South Wales and receive them therefrom. As late as 1850,
letters from Rudgeway for Bristol were impressed with a stamp thus:—
BRISTOL
4 JA 50.
BY POST.