The Mount Pleasant Mail Centre is operated by the Royal Mail and previously was one of the largest sorting offices in the world.
Mount Pleasant Sorting Office was officially opened on 30 August 1889 and was built on the location of the former Coldbath Fields Prison that closed in 1885. The original prison gate was incorporated into the Post Office building but demolished in 1901.
In the 1970s, the centre pioneered the use of optical character recognition for sorting purposes with the installation of a machine in 1979.
Mount Pleasant hosts the British Postal Museum & Archive, located in Freeling House on the back of the sorting office. A Post Office branch forms part of the site, fronting on to Rosebery Avenue.
From 1927 until 2003, Mount Pleasant was connected to other major Royal Mail offices and railways stations in London via the London Post Office Railway.
TIP: See that row below the map saying MAP YEAR? Click a year to find out what was on the map in a particular decade. (The other control top right shows everything - existing or not - when you change maps. |