The Post
Boxes of Birchington
by Bernard La
Roche
Committee member,
Bernard La Roche has a confession
to make....he belongs to the Letter Box Study Group of Great Britain.
This, to
the uninitiated means that he cannot help walking past a letter box or
post box
without taking a picture of it. He even asks his friends to take
pictures of
them when they are abroad as many British letter boxes still exist in
places
like Cyprus and New Zealand. In this article, he shares some of his
fascinating
knowledge with us.
I happened to be driving down
a side road in
Birchington one day when I noticed a free- standing letter box which I
thought
worthy of a photograph. I stopped the car and walked back. Trying to
get the
letter box in focus, I noticed a little old lady who hesitated with a
strange
look in her eye and seemed to be assessing my sanity. I asked the
letter box to
smile, took the photograph politely and told the little old lady she
could now
pass. I still see her in Birchington from time to time and smile.
Every letter box has a
cypher on it which tells us in which reign it was erected. This cypher
is very
useful as it can determine the centre of an old village. The first post
boxes
with the cypher "VR" were put up in Queen Victoria's reign after the
appearance of the Penny Black in 1840. Before that, there were no
stamps, no
postmen and, of course, no letter boxes.
As
villages grew in size, more
and more letter
boxes were required to meet the needs of the day. Then the cypher of
the
current ruling monarch would appear on the box. Queen Victoria was
followed by
her son, Edward VII with the letters "E" and "R
with a small "VII" inside and a crown above.
George V retained the
crown, but
just had a plain "GR".
The rarest cypher is that of
Edward VIII whose reign
was so very short. His "E" and "R" stand next to each other
with the number "VIII" in between the two letters.
George VI reverted
to more ornate lettering for his post box cypher, whereas our
present Queen has adopted a much plainer style.
However, since 1953, boxes
made for Scotland have the
Scottish crown rather than the Queen's own cypher which was felt to be
unacceptable.
We now have only one last
post-box in
Birchington bearing the “VR” cypher. It is to be
found set in the wall on the
corner of Alpha Road and
Epple Road.
Here the letters "V" and "R" are in plain letters set
either side of the crown.
Birchington
also has boxes
with the royal
cyphers of Edward VII, George V, George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.
|