It’s interesting to think that before the introduction of the simple yet effective post box over 170 years ago, the sender would have to traipse often miles to take their words of wisdom and catch-up writings to the post office - then known as the Receiving House. I can imagine Jane Austen clasping her letters in hand the mile and half walk into her local town - a much nosier journey by far nowadays.
It was news to me that there is a Postal museum, in deepest Debden, Essex no less. Well it didn’t surprise, for this is quirky England of course where many curiosities lurk in collectors sheds and farmers barns.
Now I’m not planning on a trip to the letter box and postal museum anytime soon, but when I stroll the streets I do tend to notice these wonderfully bright edifices. Red was chosen as the stand-out colour, and it makes good sense then as now, as when searching for the closest they are easily spotted. The design was certainly drawn from the floor up and first designed to fit in to their environments. The iconic red pillar box, standing proud unlike their wall box sibling, made to sink-in, hunker down in brickwork or cling to lamplight.
From any era they all have a certain look, something which aficionados can tell at glance. Just like their cousins the telephone box, so this street furniture - if I can blurt the unkempt phrase - took on many guises, like a person searching for the right hairdo, before settling on the iconic look. Of course things in life are never entirely settled - much like our hair - and the nature of posting a letter has changed radically since the dawn the 21st century. Thesedays you’d be troubled to fit 99% of the stuff which drops onto the doorstep in these robust cast iron pillars.
Not wishing to get too nerdy about these things, but then it wouldn’t be History Ramble if I didn’t divulge just a little curious historical info. This one, a Penfold Box, snapped in the cosy Surrey folds of Haslemere, dates from around 1870 - just a a few years short of the vivid red revamp. Designed by John Penfold, a then Haslemere resident, so the name of this styled Penfold posting box stuck.
Above; I’m a big fan of the mighty red, and this one, originally painted green when introduced in 1856, is all the more striking for it.
Tucked along Eton High Street, this PB1 to give it its formal title has a distinct vertical aperture. Only a dozen of these elegant fluted varieties remain, so to spot one is a rare find.