[1][2] Once the second largest city in Queensland, due to the gold mining boom, Charters Towers has a rich collection of heritage buildings, and a current population of about 8,000.

[1][3] The building was designed in the Queensland Government Architect's office during the changeover of leadership from George St Paul Connolly to Alfred Barton Brady with Thomas Pye and possibly also John Smith Murdoch involved with the project.

[1] It is a two-storey masonry building with public areas on the ground floor and the original two flats incorporated on the upper level now converted to working space.

[1] The 1892-1898 alterations made this elevation asymmetrical, replacing the original central door with an elongated porch area to the right side, and a large corner tower.

[1] The vigour of this breakfront largely submerged the former elevation, which was masked further by the replacement of its cast iron columns with a set of astylar pilasters backed by piers, and topped with scroll consoles supporting the upper verandah.

Above that comes the clock face storey, completely plain apart from the clock, and above that is the lookout, more Romanesque than Baroque in its flavour, with colonnettes, a roundel balustrade, parapet gables to east and west, and a four-sided metal-clad extruded pyramid spire, patterned in descending chevrons and fronted on the Gill street side by an equilaterally triangular pediment with circular vent.

The long "bunkhouse" chain of service rooms behind the early design appears to have gone, replaced by a shorter two-storey trailing wing, running back along the Deane Street elevation behind the clock tower.

Through its scale and late Victorian/Baroque Revival architectural treatment, it is demonstrative of the extraordinary prosperity of Charters Towers, and the associated gold field, in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

[1] Stylistically and architecturally, the post office is an important fusion of late Victorian and Baroque Revival genres in Queensland, with some Queen Anne Free Style detailing (such as ogee consoles on the ground floor, and equilateral triangle-pediments on the clock tower).

The vigorous reworking associated with the breakfront, entry porch and clock tower of 1898, are part of an early essay in the Baroque Revival grand manner, by one of its most important practitioners in Australia, the Queensland Government Architect Alfred Barton Brady.

It is valued for its prominent corner siting; five-storey corner clock tower with friezes, rusticated stuccoed banding, colonnettes, parapet gables and four-sided metal-clad extruded pyramid spire; two-stepped breakfront porch entrance with flanking piers and paired Corinthian columns; and verandah with astylar pilasters topped with scroll consoles.

[1] Criterion G: Social value Charters Towers Post Office is of social significance to the community of Charters Towers and the surrounding region, as a prominent and valued public building dating to the era of nineteenth century gold prosperity in the city, and as the focus of postal services and communication in the town for over 120 years.

[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Charters Towers Post Office, entry number 105523 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 30 September 2018.