The area on which Royal Mail Mount Pleasant now stands was originally open fields on rising ground above the River Fleet. In the 18th century, a cold spring on the site was reputed to have great medicinal properties. This attracted many bathers and the site became known as ‘Cold Bath Fields’.

The fields were later used as a rubbish tip which, for some ironic reason, became known as ‘Mount Pleasant’.

In 1790 the site was cleared to make way for a new prison. Opened in 1794, it was initially called the Middlesex House of Correction, but soon became known as Cold Bath Prison! Originally a criminal jail, it later became a debtors prison before closing in 1885.

In 1887 it became apparent that the post office needed large premises in London, and a location was chosen on the site of a former prison which was in close location to three major railway stations. The site was officially transferred to the Post Office in 1889. The old prison was gradually replaced to make way for Post Office buildings as more and more space was needed. The first Post Office building, devoted to the parcel post and the housing of postal stores, was completed in 1890. An extension was built in 1900 to accommodate the transfer of the London Letter Post Office. The original prison gate was incorporated into this new sorting office and not demolished until 1901.

The last remaining sections of the prison were demolished in 1929 to make way for an extension of the Letter Office. On 2 November 1934, the new building was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. This building was to house the Inland Section Sorting Office, the Postal Stores Depot and the administrative offices.

The Post Office Underground Railway was based here and opened in 1929.

As early as February 1937, the Post Office began to prepare for war, so that there would be as little disruption to the mail as possible. Staff were trained and prepared to take on extra duties and structural alterations were made to provide access to the Post Office Railway so it could be used as an air-raid shelter for staff.

On 16 October 1940, a high-explosive bomb fell on the Farringdon Road entrance to the Parcel Block, and the resulting crater caused the collapse of the road way, making the entire yard impassable. On 18 June 1943 the parcel section building was completely destroyed by a single bomb. The bomb struck the block towards the North East corner causing a fierce fire which soon had the whole building ablaze. Despite being fought for four hours, the entire building, except for a large part of the basement, was gutted – including 77,000 parcels.

Fire raged at Mount Pleasant again after the war on 5 October 1954 when the supplies department, based on the top floor, was severely damaged.

Mount Pleasant pioneered the use of Optical Character Recognition sorting equipment with the installation of the machinery in 1979. An electronic eye reads printed addresses and the machine converts the postcode into a series of phosphor dots which it prints onto the envelope. This allows the sorting machines to ‘read’ each address automatically.

Today ‘The Mount’ is the principal Processing Centre in the London Division. Improvements have been made in all aspects of the office.

The office is presently the largest automated processing centre in the UK, fully using the Mount’s site and its large automated processing equipment.

February 1997 saw the refurbishment of the Electronic Services Centre. One of only two centres in the country, the Electronic Service Centre transforms electronic data into conventional mail for business customers. Mount Pleasant is the most highly developed unit within Royal Mail and fully equipped to serve far into the future.

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