New lease of life for Wolverhampton's 129-year-old former post office
A city’s historic former post office that has been left empty for years is set to be given a new lease of life as a restaurant and function room.
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Wolverhampton Council has approved plans to re-open the grade II listed former Grand Post House in the city centre’s Lichfield Street as an African restaurant and ‘ceremonial hall’.
The outside of the tired 129-year-old building, which was Wolverhampton’s head post office until the 1960s, will be tidied up and the broken windows replaced.
The planning application lists the opening hours as 11am to 3am.
The drawings submitted with the application show a hall with 82 covers, as well as a restaurant, bar and sitting room.
The building’s ground floor would be converted into a kitchen, lobby and toilets.
The applicant Georgina Konadu also owns the neighbouring Sweet Elohim Afro Market on the corner of Lichfield Street and Princess Street and Sweet Elohim Afro Resto, a stone’s throw away on the corner of Lichfield Street and Fryer Street.
The grade II listed Grand Post House was built in 1895 and remained the city’s chief post office until the 1960s. The building was then refurbished as offices and teaching rooms and used by the University of Wolverhampton until 2007 where it has remained ‘mostly’ empty since.
British Gas engineers stumbled on more than 1,000 cannabis plants in the cellar of the Grand Post House in 2022. It took police officers two days to clear the estimated £1 million haul from the empty city centre building – just minutes away from Wolverhampton police station.
Wolverhampton Council had approved plans in 2014 to convert much of the building into a new student union for the University of Wolverhampton as well as provide a space for concerts, wedding receptions, conferences, fairs and exhibitions. However, this work was never carried out.
