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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." 

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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.

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Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Piccadilly

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

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Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Rutland Gate

5 similar plaques have been erected.

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Anthony Trollope - pillar box - Strand

5 similar plaques have been erected.

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Charlotte Dujardin gold post box

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

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Other Subjects

High Speed 1

High Speed 1

A high-speed railway link from London through Kent to the UK end of the Channel Tunnel. Officially known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and originally as the Union Railway or Continental Ma...

Place, Transport

2 memorials
Keith Hill

Keith Hill

MP, In 1999 Minister for London bringing London's Red Route Network into full operation.

Person, Politics & Administration, Transport

1 memorial
Roger Blake

Roger Blake

Hackney Council provided this information in 2015: The high level walkway between Hackney Central and Hackney Downs stations was dedicated to Hackney Council’s former Principal Transport Planner, R...

Person, Transport

1 memorial
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
Tough Brothers Boatyard

Tough Brothers Boatyard

The Boatyard of Tough Brothers, Ferry Road,was at the wharf opposite Teddington Lock. In May 1940 Douglas Tough organised and assembled 100 private boats at that location to join in the Dunkirk eva...

Place, Transport

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Actor and 40th President of the USA, 1981 - 1989.  Honorary knighthood - Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.  Best film line?  In the 1942 film "King's Row" on realising that his legs have...

Person, Cinema, Politics & Administration, Seriously Famous, USA

2 memorials
Animals in war - horses

Animals in war - horses

W1, Brook Gate

This is an impressive memorial but many people find it over-sentimental. Like most war memorials it insists we remember the fallen but in...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Thankfull Sturdee

Thankfull Sturdee

SE8, Bolden Street, 16

Borough of Lewisham Thankfull Sturdee, 1852 - 1934, local historian and photographer, lived here, 1900-1903.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Jack Cornwell, VC

Jack Cornwell, VC

Sailor. Born as John Travers Cornwell in Clyde Place, Leyton, he enlisted in the Royal Navy at the age of 15. Killed at the Battle of Jutland, aged 16. He was serving on H.M.S. Chester during the ...

Person, Armed Forces, Children

War dead, WW1
6 memorials