Post your Post Boxes! (Photos and fun facts)

[Sun Chariot]

That "carpenters box" is a gem @High Dyke ; I like the boxes which lurk within windows of Sub Post Offices and ex-SPOs.
EIght "Eighths", well done! My "within one hour's drive" scope has two EVIII examples: Winchester (post 1) and Burpham.

Advent antics...
Toppers: for me, they are Marmite - some, I marvel at; many, I cringe at! Attached is a themed pair a short drive from home.
Look for toppers on post boxes around your area - and post your photos of the colourful, the seasonal, or the wacky!

 

[pdeaves]

To be removed from some boxes going forwards: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/village-knitters-royal-mail-5HjdNDr_2/

Article includes "New solar-powered postboxes introduced by Royal Mail are forcing knitters to retire their postbox toppers in UK villages."

Why on earth do post boxes need any power at all?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Article includes "New solar-powered postboxes introduced by Royal Mail are forcing knitters to retire their postbox toppers in UK villages."

It's partly what inspired post 91's idea - photos of as many of the remaining toppers, before they go.

 

[styles]

Article includes "New solar-powered postboxes introduced by Royal Mail are forcing knitters to retire their postbox toppers in UK villages."

Why on earth do post boxes need any power at all?

Parcel returns. The return boxes will be locked/unlocked electronically.

 

[Sun Chariot]

The solar-powered cap and the parcel-returns front, are now installed on the EIIR Type A box seen on post 52 (photo of a doorless pillar box).
Once this week's forecast deluge is past, I'll get a photo of it.

OT: last week, my wife and I were in Tromsø and surrounding mainland, above the Arctic Circle in Norway. I looked hard for post boxes - but I didn't see a single example.
Mind you, the winter temperatures would probably freeze post box doors closed! It explains why some of the pavements are heated (yes, really!).

 

[WesternLancer]

These are from a few year's ago. However, we managed to get pictures of both boxes at Framlingham. We found one on (i) Double Street. The second one on (ii) Mount Pleasant.

View attachment 193100 (i) View attachment 193101 (ii)

Other delights include the K4 combined box at Whitley Bay. Also the rather fancy box outside the Post Office at Barnet, North London (apologies for the shadow. It was about 22:15 at night)

View attachment 193102 View attachment 193103

Here are the disused stamp machines at (a) Rugby station, where you also find two VR wall boxes. (b) London Road, King's Lynn

View attachment 193104 (a) View attachment 193105 (b)

very interesting selection of images there - I don't think I have seen any of those sorts of things in real life. Presumably the stamp vending machine that's relatively modern looking pre dates the sale of stamps in corner shops and supermarkets? How old is it roughly? 1980s?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2025 ==

The solar-powered cap and the parcel-returns front, are now installed on the EIIR Type A box seen on post 52 (photo of a doorless pillar box).
Once this week's forecast deluge is past, I'll get a photo of it.

Look forward to seeing that to see how they get adapted

OT: last week, my wife and I were in Tromsø and surrounding mainland, above the Arctic Circle in Norway. I looked hard for post boxes - but I didn't see a single example.
Mind you, the winter temperatures would probably freeze post box doors closed! It explains why some of the pavements are heated (yes, really!).

I was in Norway in the summer and indeed found it hard to find post boxes when looking, but although red they are relatively small boxes and were not visually prominent - I'm not sure if they have been removing them and reducing the numbers or if they never had many to start with. In the end I would tend to see if the post office was marked on the town map and find one outside the post office.

Mind you many Norwegian post offices seemed to have been relatively small counters in a supermarket. Often these seemed to be staffed by supermarket staff. In one case product knowledge seemed to be pretty limited - ie my request for a stamp for a postcard to be e-mailed to the UK required the relatively young person at the counter to seek assistance from a more long standing member of staff on one of the shop tills to advise them on what to sell me.

 

[High Dyke]

very interesting selection of images there - I don't think I have seen any of those sorts of things in real life. Presumably the stamp vending machine that's relatively modern looking pre dates the sale of stamps in corner shops and supermarkets? How old is it roughly? 1980s?

It has that 1980s feel about it. I'm not certain, but they may have also been attached to some pillar boxes as well.

 

[weepingwillowb]

Swineshead Post Office's wall box, seven miles west of Boston.

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[Sun Chariot]

Swineshead Post Office's wall box, seven miles west of Boston.

Those extra-large wall boxes have such a splendid presence! That one seems to use a collection-plate frame from an EIIR lamp box manufactured by Carronade.
I can't make out the maker on the bottom of Swineshead box; quite a lot of paint on it. Do you know which manufacturer?

 

[WesternLancer]

Installed today.
But battery powered I think. Not a variation on the new solar powered boxes

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2025 ==

It has that 1980s feel about it. I'm not certain, but they may have also been attached to some pillar boxes as well.

Thanks.

 

[Sun Chariot]

The doorless post box in post 52, has been reunited with its reworked door: now with a parcels drop-off facility. The post box also has the associated electronics powered by a solar panel fitted over the existing cap.

Installed today.
But battery powered I think. Not a variation on the new solar powered boxes

Treemendous effort!

 

[weepingwillowb]

Those extra-large wall boxes have such a splendid presence! That one seems to use a collection-plate frame from an EIIR lamp box manufactured by Carronade.
I can't make out the maker on the bottom of Swineshead box; quite a lot of paint on it. Do you know which manufacturer?

Unfortunately no. I took the photos during an early morning walk down the High Street, after having stopped over in Swineshead for a night.

Two more from Lancaster. First is a King Edward VIII pillar box on Scotforth Road. The manufacturer was McDowell & Steven Co. Ltd. London & Falkirk.

Another wall box, this one's in Church Street,
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[Sun Chariot]

Oh you spoil us @weepingwillowb

Type A boxes bearing Edward VIII's cypher - very rare things; I'm impressed you found one.

 

[Steddenm]

Have a blue one. No idea where it is, a friend sent me the pic on Facebook earlier on. It has GR on and I think it was for air mail back in the day.

 

[pdeaves]

That's Manchester Liverpool Road (shown on this Google map page: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gcMdjkvYEDunmaAFA)

 

[Sun Chariot]

Here's a blue one .... It has GR on and I think it was for air mail back in the day.

Ah, the slippery slope of post boxes.
That example - in fact, all blue GR examples in the UK* - are modern repaints; and many aren't actually ex-Airmail boxes.
Liverpool Road, Manchester, Type A is one such faux. It has more likely been painted in homage to Manchester City F.C.

G.P.O.'s only recorded GR Type A Airmail pillar box produced, was installed by Postal Headquarters, King Edward Building, London EC1. It was recorded as being removed & destroyed.

The other c.300 Airmail boxes were of the Type B, of smaller diameter. Up-thread I've added examples, with clues how to spot if a GR Type B is a former Airmail example.

* A genuine Type B Airmail box, restored to its original Airmail colour and condition, is at The Post Office Museum.

 

[weepingwillowb]

Found these two photos I took in Rugby years ago, before digital cameras.

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[WesternLancer]

Interestingly I walked past a post box today in the town centre where a contractor (or member of RM staff - they were beside a hired van so not so easy to tell) was busy removing fly posted stickers from the post box using a power drill with some sort of buffing accessory - which was spinning too fast for me to see what it was made of). Unfortunately this process must have been on the aggressive side as it was leaving the red paint dulled in the areas being buffed.

But well done to Royal Mail for at least trying to keep the boxes in tidy condition.

Going on the photos above rather more could do with the occasional grit or sand blast say once every 50 years, like my local one had a few years ago, to remove the multiple layers of paint and improve the casting definition of the boxes. When several near us were treated to this it really transformed them - 3 were over 110 years old.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Wonderful stuff @weepingwillowb That Rugby box bears the Imperial State Crown, dating to 1901-1904; and looks almost identical to the EVII examples on posts 1 and 58.

 

[weepingwillowb]

A letter box in a brick pillar in Aston-by-Stone, to the south of Stone, Staffordshire. Is there a name for this type of box?

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[Sun Chariot]

Post boxes mounted into solitary brick or stone pillars, make me wonder if the pillar was built for the post box, or if the as-was GPO made use of existing pillars.

No exotic name for them, @weepingwillowb - just "wall box".

 

[Forty29]

Reading this thread will definitely make me look out for interesting postboxes in the future. l know of a very old one near me but it is covered in hoarding's of an derelict old pub .

 

[Sun Chariot]

Reading this thread will definitely make me look out for interesting postboxes in the future. l know of a very old one near me but it is covered in hoarding's of an derelict old pub .

Once you slide into the world of post boxes, you can't escape
The old box you mention, @Forty29 - have you looked at that same location on Google Street, e.g. if that box was captured via Google's camera-car, before the hoarding went up around the derelict pub?

 

[bspahh]

I'm not a member - my interest is just casual fun - and I use a different way to "hunt" unusual and interesting local boxes:
I1) I choose an area of a few square miles,
2) I find the postcode for a business within that area,
3) I enter the postcode on Royal Mail, here: https://www.royalmail.com/services-near-you#/
4) Royal Mail's web page then shows all its active post boxes in that area.
5) I open Google Maps (in street view) and I I go - virtually - to each location, to see what the box is. It's a bit laborious but it means I can find boxes worthy of visiting in person.

https://postboxes.dracos.co.uk/ is a good site to find post boxes.

The guy who wrote the code for https://traintimes.org.uk got a list of UK postboxes from the Royal Mail, but they only had a street address and not the precise location. He wrote a site, where you could add a pin for the precise location. For some it was just a case of browsing on Google Streetview. For others it required use of shoe leather.

 

[Sun Chariot]

https://postboxes.dracos.co.uk/ is a good site to find post boxes.

The guy who wrote the code for https://traintimes.org.uk got a list of UK postboxes from the Royal Mail, but they only had a street address and not the precise location

Royal Mail's own mobile app shows every box in its precise location. It's close to 100% true - when compared to Google Street View, I've found a few are adrift by sub-10 metres.

 

[weepingwillowb]

Geograph is also quite good for UK post boxes and pillar boxes. https://www.geograph.org.uk/of/pillar+boxes

 

[Stathern Jc]

On Tiree, and in other places on the West of Scotland, you can get a postcard of the isolated Postbox beside a passing place on the road at Gott Bay.


Probably not a rare type of postbox, but the location has a lot of character.
And, yes, I just had to do the tourist thing when we were there a few years ago.

p.s. I just noticed the "Last Collection" time.
This might seem a bit early to most readers, but it will be set to fit in with the ferry timetable.
At that time the sailing was around 1130, being the return of the 0700 from Oban.
(Not too often that Tiree gets a mention here?)

 

[weepingwillowb]

Here's a new one in Antarctica! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrnnze3mepo

(Sorry, I couldn't copy the photo)

 

[Sun Chariot]

Excellent stuff @Stathern Jc , @weepingwillowb I do like the bizarre sight of "in the middle of nowhere" post boxes!

 

[Ashley Hill]

It’s a shame the CR111 ones are not a complete casting. The ones I’ve seen on here look like an engraved alloy plate applied to an already made box.