CASTLETHORPE’S PO TO MOVE
For more than 100 years the post office at Castlethorpe has been in the small low-ceilinged cottage near the school, facing the Parish Church.
This autumn it is to be moved to a new building now being built at No. 1 New Road – but the family link with the very first village post office in 1844 is to continue.
In 1840, the year that Rowland Hill introduced the postage stamp, a licence was granted for the sale of stamps in the village. Four years later on January 16, 1844, Mr. John Rooker Rainbow became Castlethorpe’s first postmaster.
The post office was in a small cottage in The Gardens yard and it remained here for some time. Unfortunately Mr. Rainbow died shortly after taking office and by November his widow Mrs. Rebecca Rainbow, had been appointed in his stead.
After a time she moved to live with her son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. William Rainbow, at the present Post Office.
At her death the postmastership was transferred to Mr. Rainbow in name only, the work being carried on by his wife, Elizabeth, and their daughter, Elizabeth Jane.
When her father died in 1920 Miss Rainbow took over and continued until October 1956 – marrying the auxiliary postman, Mr. J. E. Gobbey, in the meantime. The present postmistress is her nephew’s wife, Mrs. Nancy Sawbridge.
This direct link of 117 years must surely be hard to beat.
Mrs. Gobbey, now 82, retains a wonderful memory and remembers many of the things her mother and grandmother told her about the early days of the postal service in the village.
Prompted by Mr. Gobbey, who had 30 years as an auxiliary postman she recounted to the “Express” how letters from outside the district were collected on foot from Stony Stratford. One of the first “postmen”, a Mr. Hurst, used to walk round the Castlethorpe area before there were posting boxes, and blew a horn to let people know he was about. They brought out their letters and parcels for him to take to Stony Stratford.
Even in Mr. Gobbey’s time most of the delivering was done on foot. At Christmas time a pony and trap was hired to collect and deliver the many parcels. Then came the bicycles and sidecars, followed by the now familiar bicycles and front carriers.
Telegrams could be sent from the post office for the first time in 1905 and on March 25, 1914, a telephone was installed.
Mr. and Mrs. Gobbey are to continue to live at this 300-year-old former public house with its huge fireplace and large cellar that has so many links with Castlethorpe’s past.
