Birthday box
Post boxes: readers who return often to this blog might have noticed that I have bit of a thing about them – I must have done at least half a dozen posts about post boxes over the years. Although they’re not strictly buildings, they’re built structures, and some were designed by architects. And the people who decide which buildings should be listed don’t have any problems with including them: there are quite a few listed boxes.
A number of these are Penfolds, the lovely Victorian hexagonal boxes that celebrate their 150th birthday this year. They’re named for their designer, architect John Wornham Penfold,* and they are rather architectural in character, with the acanthus leaves around the top. They were made between 1866 and 1879 before being superseded by cylindrical boxes that were less costly to manufacture.
Original 1866 Penfolds are quite rare. There are 20 of them in use on Britain’s streets, including a fair number in London and no fewer than 8 in Cheltenham†. So as I live near Cheltenham, it’s a local Penfold I’ve chosen to share with you. It’s rather special in that it still has the original white enamel flap over the slot, chipped and spattered with red paint, but still hanging there, helping to keep out driving rain and autumn leaves.
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* Penfold was a distinguished member of his profession. He became President of the Architectural Association and a Fellow of the RIBA. There’s more about him and his post boxes here. I'm also indebted to an article in NADFAS Review, Autumn 2016, for reminding me about this anniversary.
† The total number of Penfolds in use, both 1866 examples and later ones, is about 70.
14 comments:
I imagine that post boxes are all equally functional, regardless of cylindrical or hexagonal shapes, red or green colours, smart finials or not. So why not have the most handsome post boxes in the street!
Money, Hels, was the main reason for the change. They needed a lot more boxes and the hexagonal ones were more expensive to make than cylindrical ones. The cylinders that came in in the late-19th century also had a bigger capacity, but that wasn't really the key as they could have made bigger hexagonal ones. It was the cost, essentially.
A minor thing about the functionality of the Penfold type is the letter flap I pointed out in my post. I like these flaps to look at, but the job of keeping out rain etc is done largely by overhanging bits of metalwork on other boxes, and the flap is not strictly necessary, even on the Penfold, and they tended to break and fall off. Many surviving Penfolds function fine without their flaps.
An exquisite piece of British quintessence that stands tall and proud in the face of adversity brought about by globalisation, where the streamlining and uniformisation of design and architecture across the world is leading the way to cultural impoverishment.
Nathalie: Thank you very much for your comment. I agree that we should try to preserve and promote these importance design differences. One of the things this blog tries to do is to celebrate local distinctiveness – things you would only see in this country, often only in a particular English region. A particular inspiration in this is Sue Clifford and Angela King's Book England in Particular, and its related website: http://www.englandinparticular.info .
Do other countries have such an interesting variety of letterboxes and an interest in their history? I do admire the Penfold letterbox as being very elegant and so suitable for historic settings. My other favourites are the letterboxes that look like fluted classical columns.
Love this post, and all of your images and information about post boxes. They always make me smile. I like the little boxes on the side of cottages or in a garden wall too. Very interesting piece today, thank you.
Stephen: Not as far as I know. With the exception of British Commonwealth countries, the places I've visited have usually had fairly unassuming little wall-mounted tin boxes for the post. But I have not researched this. Apparently Britain exported post boxes to Argentina and Uruguay and Portugal, but I've not seen these.
LeeAnn: Thank you very much. London's Postal Museum is due to open next year, so anyone who can get to the capital is in for a postal feast. I intend to do a post about it when the time comes.
Now, I might have dreamt it, but I think that the Penfolds are now being produced in small quantities for 'heritage' areas. There is one in the centre of Faversham on Kent. I think.
Peter: Yes! They have been made since the late 1980s. But do they have the little enamel letter flaps? Since I photographed the one in Cheltenham the other day I have been wondering how many of these admirable English flaps survive on the original Penfold boxes.
Page 13 - 18 of http://www.gsia.org.uk/reprints/news/ginl07.pdf may be of interest to you and your readers.
Tony Macer
Tony: Thank you. Facsinating. I didn't know the story about letters getting caught in the internal structure of the hexagonal boxes, this being one thing that led to their being phased out.
Of course, Victorian postboxes in the Irish Republic are still painted green. Interesting to see the insignia of various monarchs who were then just as much Irish monarchs. According to a photo circa 1967 there were also red British-style postboxes in Israel. Where else? Singapore? Belize? Barbados? Anybody know?
British-style pillar boxes pop up in all sorts of unlikely places such as Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain (because the Post Office provided postal services there); also Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal (boxes were exported to these countries).
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