Group   

Royal Mail

Categories: Transport

Before the 2012 Olympics started the Royal Mail committed to turn a red post box gold for each British Gold medal, Olympic and Paralympic. In the event this meant that over 100 boxes turned colour. Each one is associated with a particular gold medal and has been chosen to be close to the medallist's home town/borough. Here's the map. We don't believe that the Royal Mail despatched an employee with a pot of gold paint the instant the medallist crossed the line but they have said the colour is permanent.

The Royal Mail have their own website of memorials, nationwide: https://www.royalmail.com/memorials/home .

2022: Londonist have posted (ha ha) an excellent page on postboxes

2024: We read a WW2 'Letter from London' by Mollie Panter-Downes with: "Posting a letter has acquired a new interest, too, since His Majesty's tubby scarlet pillar boxes have been done up in squares of yellow detector paint, which changes colour if there is poison gas in the air and is said to be as sensitive as a chameleon." 

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Royal Mail

Creations i

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Fleet Street

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Piccadilly

This plaque commemorates the bicentenary of the birth of Anthony Trollope (18...

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Rutland Gate

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Strand

5 similar plaques have been erected.

Read More

Charlotte Dujardin gold post box

{On plaque attached to side of box:} This post box has been painted gold by R...

Read More

Other Subjects

Paul Atterbury

Paul Atterbury

As this is a fairly unusual name, we are presuming he's the same person who is one of the experts on the BBC television series 'Antiques Roadshow'. He has also written about railways.

Person, Transport, TV & Radio

1 memorial
Finnish Seamen's Mission

Finnish Seamen's Mission

We found a reference to the Mission at the Branch Street address in the Children's Newspaper, 10 June 1933, but apart from that the address given for the Finnish Seamen's Mission and church is alwa...

Group, Community / Clubs, Transport, Finland

1 memorial
DLR extension to Lewisham

DLR extension to Lewisham

The Docklands Light Railway was originally opened in 1987 and ran from Tower Gateway to Island Gardens and Stratford. As passenger numbers increased, the decision was taken to extend the line south...

Place, Transport

2 memorials
Clapham Junction rail disaster

Clapham Junction rail disaster

At 8.10 a.m. a crowded passenger train from Basingstoke heading for London Waterloo, crashed into another train that had stopped at a signal. A further empty train travelling in the opposite direct...

Event, Tragedy, Transport

1 memorial
Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

Named not for its own two towers but for the nearby, pre-existing Tower of London. Tower Bridge was designed by Horace Jones, the City Architect, in collaboration with the engineer, John Wolfe Barr...

Building, Tourism / Traditions, Transport

5 memorials