Whilst most photo themes have considerable variety in their examples, Post Boxes are not so different at first sight... after all, they’re painted Pillar Box Red for a reason... to visually stand out on busy streets. However, look at this brightly painted object from a distance when you next go to post a letter and note which of the four common types of box you see... Lamp, Pillar, Wall or Ludlow.

I have yet to see a Lamp box actually mounted on a lamp-post... but I’ve seen hundreds in the countryside on short stumpy posts and telegraph poles. Pillar boxes are not just round man-sized objects on street corners... they can be hexagonal or fluted - from Victorian times - or the modern square type. But I find the most interesting ones are Wall boxes because in different geographical locations the design and texture of the natural materials used for the walls they’re built into varies so much from warm coloured brick and Cotswold stone to hard granite and flints.

Originally British post boxes could be and were painted any colour, but in 1859 the colour was standardised as bronze green... then changed again in 1874 to red. Most post boxes the world over are painted red, including those in large countries such as Australia and India, and smaller areas such as the Isle of Man and Hong Kong although the latter changed to green after the 1997 hand-over to China. Green is also the colour occasionally daubed over red post boxes (image 2, 3rd row) in the Principality by Welsh extremists... which I find odd considering the Red Dragon is such a powerful symbol of Wales. The second important visual difference, or rather distinction, on post boxes is the Royal Cypher indicating in which reign they were manufactured. There are still plenty of “VR” boxes to be seen from the reign of Victoria Regina, but not many from the short reign of Edward VIII. From the Wikipedia page...

All post boxes for use in the United Kingdom display the Royal Cipher of the reigning monarch at the time of manufacture. Exceptions are the Anonymous pillar boxes of 1879-87, where the cipher was omitted, and all boxes for use in Scotland manufactured after 1952 (including replicas of the 1866 Penfold design) which show the Queen's Crown of Scotland instead of the English/Welsh cipher for Elizabeth II. This is because Elizabeth I reigned in England before the Act of Union of 1707 which united Scotland with England and therefore the present Queen is the first Elizabeth to be Queen of Scotland. Private boxes emptied by Royal Mail do not have to carry a cipher. Royal Mail postboxes manufactured since 1994 carry the wording "Royal Mail", normally above the aperture (lamp boxes) or on the door (pillar boxes). Before this date all post boxes, with the exception of the Anonymous pillar boxes, carried the wording "Post Office".

The themed examples on this page are from all over the UK... my favourites always being the scarcer Victorian hexagonal and much rarer fluted pillar boxes. But to highlight two from my collection... one was spotted on the side of a preserved Travelling Post Office carriage on the Bluebell Railway in Sussex. From the reign of George VI, the instructions to all using the service was, ”Letters posted here must bear an extra halfpenny stamp.” The other is illustrated on the 20 Photo Themes Index page... the Badminton Post Office in Gloucestershire has a simple slit in the stone wall of the post office bearing only the inscription “Letter Box” in faded lettering... and that in a village on a Royal estate!