Post It PNG & PSD images with full transparency. Over 200 angles available for each 3D object, rotate and download. PixelSquid.
The Pillar Box by Alexander Johnston Date painted: 1876 Collection: Grundy Art Gallery. Save your coins and bills in our adorable English Red Post Box. Since the 1850's these beautiful round pillar mailboxes has decorated the streets throughout England and the UK. This pretty post box comes with a nice silver key ring and a key to open the curved door to retrieve the deposits. A wide variety of pillar post box options are available to you, such as metal, stainless steel, and aluminum. You can also choose from wall mounted pillar post box, as well as from restaurants, department stores, and super markets pillar post box, and whether pillar post box is.
If you've ever been to the U.K., you may have seen bright red cylindrical objects around town. These pillar boxes are the U.S. equivalent of the free-standing blue arch-like mailboxes (and should not be confused with pillarboxes, which are the black bars that appear to the sides of a movie image that wasn't formatted for widescreen). Although they're more common in the U.K. or in former nations of the British empire, versions of this special red post box can also be found in other countries, such as Japan or Portugal.
Pillar boxes started to appear in 1852, twelve years after the first adhesive postage stamp was introduced. Before then, citizens would have to take their outgoing mail to the nearest letter receiving house or post office and personally deliver it to the postmaster after purchasing a stamp. Although they were initially proposed in 1840 by Sir Rowland Hill (who thought they would 'add greatly to the public convenience'), it wasn't until 1852 that the first pillar boxes were erected in the Channel Islands. It was a successful trial, which later spread with their implementation accross the mainland.
The boxes varied slightly from one area to the next, as each District Surveyor gave their own specifications for the design. You can find the most unique-looking ones that were made early on, when they included things like octagonal pillars, fluted columns, vertical slits instead of horizontal ones, and different coloring. The construction of pillar boxes was standardized in 1905, generally made of cast iron and in a cylindrical shape.
There are three distinct parts of a pillar box: the cap, which sits on the carcass and is bolted down from the inside, the door, which is hinged and displays the Royal Cypher of the reigning monarch, and the carcass, the main body that produced down below ground level, giving stability to the pillar box. Over 150 designs and varieties of pillar boxes, and their cousins, wall boxes (mail receptacles that are set into a walls), have emerged, though not all have survived.
Next time you're in the UK, or any other country that sports these postal beauties, look a little closer and see if you can guess what time period it was erected (check out this page for some clues on the Royal cyphers)!
For a more in depth look into the history of these boxes, check out 'Well adapted for a purpose…', a really neat post from the British Postal Museum's blog.
Happy pillar box spotting! :)
For those who don't know a Pillar Box is, it's a free-standing post box often coloured red (or sometimes gold to mark Gold medal Olympic winners). These post pillars have been used since 1852 and some of them are so old they have achieved national heritage status…
Pillar Post Box For Sale
10 – High Street, Berkshire (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: The first design for London, by Grissel & Son of Hoxton Ironworks was rather stubby and rectangular, although surmounted by a decorative ball. Erected in 1855, they were replaced because people complained that they were ugly.
9 – Westgate, Warwick (Installed 1856)
Post Pillar Box Near Me
Wiki Info: The very first boxes erected in the UK are not recorded, but the designs varied from area to area as each district surveyor issued their own specifications and tendered to their own chosen foundries. The earliest ones were essentially experimental, including octagonal pillars or fluted columns, vertical slits instead of horizontal ones, and other unusual features.
8 – Eastgate, Warwick (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Before the introduction of pillar boxes, in the UK, it was customary to take outgoing mail to the nearest letter-receiving house or post office. Such houses were usually coaching inns or turnpike houses where the Royal Mail coach would stop to pick up and set down mails and passengers.
7 – Victoria Road, Milford-on-Sea (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Most traditional British pillar boxes produced after 1905 are made of cast iron and are cylindrical. Other shapes have been used: the hexagonal Penfolds, rectangular boxes that have not proved to be popular.
6 – Mudeford, Dorset (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Cast iron pillar box construction comprises three distinct main parts: The Cap, The Door and the Carcas.
Wiki Info: The very first boxes erected in the UK are not recorded, but the designs varied from area to area as each district surveyor issued their own specifications and tendered to their own chosen foundries. The earliest ones were essentially experimental, including octagonal pillars or fluted columns, vertical slits instead of horizontal ones, and other unusual features.
8 – Eastgate, Warwick (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Before the introduction of pillar boxes, in the UK, it was customary to take outgoing mail to the nearest letter-receiving house or post office. Such houses were usually coaching inns or turnpike houses where the Royal Mail coach would stop to pick up and set down mails and passengers.
7 – Victoria Road, Milford-on-Sea (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Most traditional British pillar boxes produced after 1905 are made of cast iron and are cylindrical. Other shapes have been used: the hexagonal Penfolds, rectangular boxes that have not proved to be popular.
6 – Mudeford, Dorset (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Cast iron pillar box construction comprises three distinct main parts: The Cap, The Door and the Carcas.
5 – Market Place, Oxfordshire (Installed 1856)
Pillar Post Box For Sale
Wiki Info: The red post box is regarded as a British cultural icon. Royal Mail estimates there are over 100,000 post boxes in the United Kingdom that are still in use today!
4 – Double Street, Suffolk (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Mail may also be deposited in lamp boxes or wall boxes that serve the same purpose as pillar boxes but are attached to a post or set into a wall. According to the Letter Box Study Group, there are more than 150 recognised designs and varieties of pillar boxes and wall boxes, not all of which have known surviving examples.
3 – College Road, Suffolk (Installed 1856)
Wiki Info: Mail is deposited in pillar boxes to be collected by the Royal Mail, An Post or the appropriate postal operator and forwarded to the addressee. The boxes have been in use since 1852, just twelve years after the introduction of the first adhesive postage stamps (Penny Black) and uniform penny post.
2 – Barness Cross, Dorset (Installed 1853)
Post Box Pillar Ideas
Wiki Info: Pillar boxes were provided in territories administered by the United Kingdom, such as Mandatory Palestine, and territories with agency postal services provided by the British Post Office such as Bahrain, Dubai, Kuwait and Morocco. The United Kingdom also exported pillar boxes to countries that ran their own postal services, such as Argentina, Portugal and Uruguay.
1 – St Peters Port, Guernsey (Installed 1853)
Pillar Box Format
Wiki Info: They are found in the United Kingdom and in most former nations of the British Empire, members of the Commonwealth of Nations and British overseas territories, such as Australia, Cyprus, India, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
