The General Post Office (GPO) in

Old Delhi Shahjahanabad colloquially known as Old Delhi( Hindustani: ''Purāni Dillī'') is an area in the Central Delhi district of Delhi, India. It was founded as a walled city and officially named Shahjahanabad in 1648, when Shah Jahan decided to shi ...

is a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

for

India Post The Department of Posts, d/b/a India Post, is an Indian Public Sector Undertakings in India, public sector postal system statutory body headquartered in New Delhi, India. It is an organisation under the Ministry of Communications (India), Minist ...

. In operation since 1885, during the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

, the GPO was built near the

Old Delhi Railway Station Delhi Junction railway station (station code: DLI) is the oldest railway station located in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi, Delhi, India. It is one of the busiest railway stations in the country, with around 250 trains commencing, terminating, or pa ...

near the Kashmiri Gate in the old

city wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or Earthworks (military), earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as ...

; it is the oldest post office in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

. Built in the neoclassical style of

colonial architecture Colonial architecture is a hybrid architectural style that arose as colonists combined architectural styles from their country of origin with design characteristics of the settled country. Colonists frequently built houses and buildings in a sty ...

, the two-storey building's facade is divided into five

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

engaged column An engaged column is an architectural element in which a column is embedded in a wall and partly projecting from the surface of the wall, which may or may not carry a partial structural load. Sometimes defined as semi- or three-quarter detached ...

s of the classical

Tuscan order The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but wit ...

on the ground storey, and by

pilasters In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

on the upper storey.

References

{{Postal administrations of Asia D Delhi

See also

References