A CENTURY-old photograph has been uncovered of a post office now being forced to close.

It shows Hannah Redfearn with daughter Marion in the doorway of Greenbank post office, in Darlington, shortly after she took it over in 1904.

Mrs Redfearn, and husband Joe, moved to the town after he and many others lost their jobs due to the closure of a lead smelting mill at Eggleston, near Barnard Castle.

The couple's nephew, retired farmer Arthur Bainbridge, who still lives in Eggleston, produced the photograph after reading in The Northern Echo that Greenbank post office is one of 11 across the North-East to close.

The photograph, taken around 1904, shows that the building, on the corner of Salisbury Terrace and Corporation Road, has changed little over the years. A large advertisement for The Northern Echo, stating it was the best paper with eight pages and a price of a halfpenny, has now gone, but its outline can still be seen on the brickwork. A gas lamp has also long since gone.

Mr Bainbridge said: "Our village was devastated when the smelt mill shut down and many families had to move away. Quite a lot went to Darlington.

"Hannah Redfearn seems to have done well in taking over the post office so quickly. She ran it for a number of years. Her husband Joe worked at the North Road railway workshops, but died in 1917, aged 57.

"Marion later married a Darlington man called Wilfred Young."

The photograph was made into a postcard, which Mrs Redfearn used to send regular messages to relatives in Eggleston, County Durham.