Royal Mail Mount Pleasant Sorting Office aerial 2011

The Mount Pleasant Mail Centre (often shortened as Mount Pleasant, known internally as the Mount and officially known as the London Central Mail Centre) is a

mail centre , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

operated by

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England. The site has previously operated as one of the largest

sorting office A sorting office or processing and distribution center (P&DC; name used by the United States Postal Service (USPS)) is any location where postal operators bring mail after collection for sorting into batches for delivery to the addressee, which ...

s in the world. It is located in the

London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington has ...

, on the boundary with the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St ...

History

The street called Mount Pleasant gained its name ironically in the 1730s after locals had begun to dump cinders and other refuse. The centre was officially opened on 30 August 1889 when the Post Office (Sites) Act (52 & 53 Vict. Ch. ccix) was passed by Parliament. It was built on the location of the former

Coldbath Fields Prison Coldbath Fields Prison, also formerly known as the Middlesex House of Correction and Clerkenwell Gaol and informally known as the Steel, was a prison in the Mount Pleasant area of Clerkenwell, London. Founded in the reign of James I (1603–1625 ...

that ceased to function in 1885. The original prison gate was incorporated into the Post Office building and not demolished until 1901. The remaining sections of the prison were demolished in 1929, when the new wing was built as an extension to the Letter Office. The Post Office (Sites) Act 1889 required the Post Office to provide a portion of the site, or £10,000, to

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

for use as open space. The Post Office chose to retain the entire site, and provided the funds, which were used to purchase Spa Green Gardens in

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell () is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an ancient parish from the mediaeval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The well after which it was named was redisco ...

. From 1927 to 2003, Mount Pleasant was connected to other major Royal Mail offices and railways stations in London, via the

London Post Office Railway The Post Office Railway, is a narrow gauge, driverless underground railway in London that was built by the Post Office with assistance from the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, to transport mail between sorting offices. Inspire ...

. In 1979, it pioneered the use of

optical character recognition Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...

for sorting purposes with the installation of a machine.

Location

It is located on a twelve-acre site in the Mount Pleasant area of Clerkenwell, at the junction between

Farringdon Road Farringdon Road is a road in Clerkenwell, London. Route Farringdon Road is part of the A201 route connecting King's Cross to Elephant and Castle. It goes southeast from King's Cross, crossing Rosebery Avenue, then turns south, crossing C ...

and Rosebery Avenue and opposite Exmouth Market. Mount Pleasant hosts the British Postal Museum & Archive, located in Freeling House on the back of the sorting office. A

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

branch forms part of the site, fronting on to Rosebery Avenue. Mount Pleasant road

It is proposed by Royal Mail that half the site will be used for residential and commercial redevelopment. The remaining operational part of the site is being modernised.

Postal administration

The site is the

of the

EC postcode area The EC (Eastern Central) postcode area, also known as the London EC postal area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. It includes almost all of the City of London and parts of the London boroughs of Islington, Camden, Ha ...

, the

N postcode area N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

, the W1 postcode district and the

WC postcode area The WC (Western Central) postcode area, also known as the London WC postcode area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. The area covered is of high density development, and includes parts of the City of Westminster and the ...

References

External links

Mount Pleasant
an exhibition curated by the British Postal Museum & Archive {{coord, 51, 31, 29, N, 0, 06, 43, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Royal Mail Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Islington Government buildings completed in 1889 Infrastructure in London Post office buildings in the United Kingdom Sorting offices