History on the High Street - Post Boxes

Since visiting the Postal Museum in London in April, I've taken more notice of the post boxes I come across on local walks. Several  special ones  are on display in the museum,  some with stories to tell and not all are red!

    

In my home town of Stroud on a  circular morning walk of about 3 miles, I came across no less than 6 post boxes and two were from the Victorian era, both of a slightly different design.   And there is a beautiful example of another Victorian Post Box, still in use,  right in front of the National Waterways Museum, where my latest  stamp collage exhibition is now on until 30th September of Floor No 2.
Post boxes also appear on stamps and not surprisingly I have used some in  collages, such as the Christmas robin design, which has a border of  Christmas postbox stamps.

There are still many post boxes dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria, as well as subsequent monarchs, and some are rarer than others. The postal museum has information about all these and trails leading to and from the museum also point out interesting post boxes such as the one near Holborn which is the only "Two Monarch" Postbox in the country as it has the ciphers of both Queen Victoria, and Edward VII on it.   Warning: looking for  post boxes can be addictive!

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