The Post Offices of Wangford
The Post House was at the Angel Hotel not the Swan as first thought. It must have been very busy, being on the London Road with all the passing trade, the local farmers, traders and the parcels and post to contend with.
The first Post Office was situated in a cottage where Yew tree House is now opposite the old butchers, some time before 1884 (It is on the ordnance survey map of that time.) could be as early as 1784, there is a postmarked letter of that date. (Post Houses did not usually bother with postmarks until 1840 when the penny post started.) In the Victorian era the Penny Post became very popular and more and more mail was being sent. A small cottage would not have been able to cope.
The Old Post Office then became the place to sort and deliver the mail. As the service covered Raydon, Southwold and the other surrounding villages it was thought a good idea to build a General Post and Sorting Office in Wangford. 1897 the building was completed, but the railway from Halesworth to Beccles was finished first and the new Sorting Office went to Beccles. Although the building has Post Office on the front it never be came one, only a large shop. The post was still to much for the small Post Office and parcels had to be stored in the bakers next door, so it was moved again.
The Village Store and Post Office became the place to sort the local mail. It is the large shop that was built at the same time as the Sorting Office. More changes were to come on the 6th. of May 1972 they stopped sorting mail and lost the local postmen, and it just became a Sub-post Office. The Post Office closed on the 9th. of June 2008. The Village Store it is still the at heart of Wangford along with the Angel and the Church.
History of The Angel Inn
The Angel Inn was probably built by Sir Anthony Rous of Denninton in the late 1500's. Land owners built most of the pubs and inns in England, it provided a service for the villagers. When you paid your servants and labourers from The Hall you get your money back from the pub.
The Assizes were held at the Angel, presided over by the lord of the manor and later by a local magistrate.(Smugglers from Walberswick were tried there.)
As for the ale, it would have been brewed at the pub. The barley would have come from the estate farm and the hops could have been home grown or shipped up from Kent. To bring hops from Kent would have taken 5 - 6 days by road or 2 days in a Thames barge. The barge would have picked up it's load from the Medway, sailed to Southend and spent the night, then on to Southwold harbour where the hops were put on a wagon for Wangford. The barge would then load up with farm goods for London. The Wangford Maltings were not built until the early 1700's and Adnam's brewery not until 1872.
As a local pub it has had many names, The Angel Inn, The Angel Hotel, The Angel Commercial Hotel, Ye Old Angel Inn and the Suffolk Poacher. It was while it was the Suffolk Poacher on the 14th. of June 1985, it was listed as a grade II building.
Being on the London to Yarmouth road, it was a good place to drop off mail for the local community and so it became a Post House. (A good excuse for going down the pub, you had to pick up your mail.) A lot of business would have been done in the pub, as you could wait for the coach, meet someone on their way to Yarmouth or London, and do your business during their stop over.
When the Lord Nelson Coach started it's regular service from London to Yarmouth in 1807, The Angel became a regular stop to change horses and supple food and rest for the passengers.
When the first Post Office opened in the village, (where Yew Tree House is now) the Angel still serviced the mail coaches from London and Halesworth, until about 1897-8 the train line from Halesworth to Beccles was completed
In the Victorian era Wangford had it's hay-day, shops sprang up every where, and as time went on, it developed, at one time Wangford had six pubs.
In August 1977 the bypass was built. No longer on the main road trade fell off, shops and pubs closed, but
THE ANGEL IS STILL HERE.
Stop press
On 1884 O.S. map a police station is shown as the first shop in the row in front of the Church opposite the cottages that became The Swan Hotel. It would have been next to the Church gate.
Enclosure
Or how the rich got richer
At one time if you lived on the edge of common land you could keep a couple of pigs or sheep, a few ducks and chickens,and let them roam the common land.
You could not plough or dig the land without permission of the parish. If you were moving livestock you graze them overnight on the common to rest and continue on in the morning. Then came the enclosure acts and it all changed it meant that the rich could claim the land as theirs and fence it in.
Another Butcher & a Laundry
Over the 850 celebrations it came to light that there was another butcher's shop at 71 Church Street, he was a pork butchers but seems to have ceased trading in the late 1800's.
Also it seems there was a laundry at Ting Tong Cottage before the laundry at Rose Cottage
in the early 1800's.
(It could have been run by the same people who moved for more space!)
