UK’s oldest working postbox draws mail heritage fans

Red pillar postboxes are an iconic feature of the UK postal system, first introduced more than 170 years ago after first being erected in Jersey.

They not only serve as a convenient way for mail to be deposited for collection by the Royal Mail but are also considered heritage landmarks.

Nestled in the village of Holwell, Dorset, sits one of the UK’s oldest working octagonal-shaped red postboxes.

Radio Solent’s Harry Kille-Smith went along to find out why people from across the country travel to see the 19th Century relic.

The pillar postboxes first took off on the Channel Islands in the 1850s after a famous writer suggested the idea after seeing the boxes in Europe, said Chris Taft from the Postal Museum.

“The novelist Anthony Trollope was a Post Office surveyor clerk by day, novelist in his spare time, and he’d seen roadside letterboxes in use in mainland Europe,” he said.

“He was aware of problems, in particular on the Channel Islands, with postal facilities so he suggested to his superiors the idea of roadside letterboxes as the solution to easing the situation.”

Following the success of four boxes installed on the island of Guernsey and two on Jersey, they were rolled out to the UK mainland in 1853 – with the first one erected in Holwell, said Taft.

But the original octagonal shape was eventually phased out, partly because letters kept getting stuck.

“It was designed in a day when letters were smaller there was no such thing as large format letters that we get today,” said Taft.

Pat Bath, who lives next door to the Holwell postbox, said she has fallen foul of the irregular shape.

“I posted someone a letter and I waited and waited but they didn’t receive it,” she said.

“After three weeks, I took it up with the postman when he came and he opened up the letterbox and it was there, still inside, impaled on some netting in the bottom to elevate the letters above the rain should a little puddle form in the bottom.”

Their unique shape and age also makes them harder to fix when they are damaged, said local postman Ryan Steer.

“It does cause quite a challenge to the guys who repair them because obviously parts from 1853 are hard to come by,” he said.

“But, somehow, they always work their miracles and get it operational again fairly quickly.”

Steer and Bath said they have become used to visitors from all over coming to take photographs of the iconic box.

“They used to stop outside and knock on the door and ask permission to take their pictures, as if we owned it,” said Bath.

Steer said he has had his photo taken with it “more times than I care to mention by people passing through”.

“One gentleman, who’d come all the way from London just to come have a look at it, was one of my first ones,” he said.

“I felt a bit embarrassed because I didn’t know too much about it.

“After that I thought I’d better learn a bit more for when people do turn up. I do feel weirdly lucky in a way that I’m emptying the oldest postbox in the UK.”

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