Why post boxes?
Why?
For some reason, I started posting my walk photography to Imgur in 2023. This included a photograph of the Elizabeth II lamp box in Amwell Lane, Wheathampstead, taken on Coronavirus walk 176, 30/09/2023. The weather was somewhat gloomy and the bright red painted steel post box stood out as something worth photographing. A comment from Imgur user Icanhearwhatyouresayingandtheanswerisno on Imgur regarding this photograph was the trigger to greater awareness of post boxes, in particular the different royal cyphers found on them. Although it seems that he is not British, he had already observed several different cyphers that I had not. For some reason, I had subconsciously assumed that all post boxes were Elizabeth II.
From that point on, I started noticing post boxes all around me that up until this point I had completely overlooked. There turned out to be a huge variety of designs and eras, with significant differences in probability of encountering each type, and I can’t resist variety and discovery.
The original “rule” was that all post boxes had to be encountered by chance, with no cheating. However, after unintentionally discovering the existence of a rare Edward VIII pillar box in travel distance, I had to visit it for the sake of completeness. The irony is that I would likely have made a genuine discovery a few weeks later in Ashtead while on a pylon hunt! This rule no longer applies, although many examples remain discoveries.
The other rule is that all photographs here are my own, unlike the pylon pages where grudgingly I’ve come to include photographs from others in order to improve coverage. The Pylons section is intended to be definitive, while the post boxes pages are explorative and will never achieve completeness.
Post box, postbox or letter box?
The choice of “post box” over “postbox” seems to be a matter of preference; I chose “post box” for the URL and then found that I always write it as one word! (Both spellings are likely to appear here.) The Letter Box Study Group uses “letter box”, which I found curious as a “letterbox” is the slot in your front door where post is delivered (which isn’t a box). However, early post boxes did indeed say “LETTER BOX” (two words) on them (in particular wall boxes), and the Letter Box Study Group have opted for the old name instead of the current name (Royal Mail use “postbox”, one word).
Why? (part 2)
Under the rule that all photographs must be mine, these pages will never come close to covering all the different post box types in the UK. As such, this will never be an exhaustive catalogue. However, as the Letter Box Study Group does not make detailed findings available publicly, this is my attempt to offer something in the way of a non-definitive overview. Unlike with keyboards and pylons, I’m not conducting original research this time, as all the research has already been done.