Days Gone By: The tiny outposts in our rural villages used as police stations and post offices

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

In this week’s Days Gone By I include photographs of some of the tiny outposts in Suffolk villages used as post offices and police stations.

The photographs were taken when the post office was one of the only links with the outside world, with some offering a telegraph service.

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

It is difficult to imagine how much crime the police houses had to deal with in the likes of Cotton and Barking and Otley and other tiny villages.

Do you live in one of the former police stations or post offices featured?

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

Write to David Kindred, Days Gone By, Ipswich Star/EADT, Portman House, 120 Princes Street, Ipswich, IP1 1RS or send an e-mail.

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

The Police House at Westerfield stood at the junction of Lower Road (background) and Church Lane. Did you live here? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

A small police outpost with a fine crop in the front garden. Ipswich based photographers, the Titshall Brothers, took this picture around 1930. There is no record of where it was. Do you know? Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

The police station at Barking around 1930. Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

Wyverstone Post Office in the late 1920s. Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

Shelly Post Office in the 1920s. Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

Kirton Police Station. An undated photograph probably taken in the 1920s. Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)

Layham Post Office in the 1920s. Picture: DAVE KINDRED (Image: Dave Kindred)