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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

John Richards

John Richards

Windrush Pioneer. Born Jamaica. Aged 19, he travelled to the US to work on Louisiana farms. In 1948 he emigrated on the Windrush to the UK. On arrival he was one of the 256 migrants housed in Claph...

Person, Transport, Jamaica

1 memorial
Regent's Canal Company

Regent's Canal Company

Created following the passing of the Regent's Canal Bill in July 1812, to cut a new canal from the Grand Junction Canal in Paddington to Limehouse and the Thames. John Nash was a large shareholder;...

Group, Engineering, Transport

2 memorials
Air Mechanic 2nd Class Alfred Harvey Benger

Air Mechanic 2nd Class Alfred Harvey Benger

Worked for the Great Northern Railway and died in WW1. In 2009 we were contacted by Tina Rickward, telling us she was the grand-niece of the man who appears as 'Benger A. H.' on the King's Cross w...

Person, Armed Forces, Transport

War dead, WW1
1 memorial

Previously viewed

Duke of Westminster, 6th, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor

Duke of Westminster, 6th, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor

Born Omagh, N. Ireland. Extremely rich landowner, possessing vast chunks of Lancashire, Cheshire and Scotland as well as most of Mayfair and Belgravia. There are bits of Paris, Canada and Spain he ...

Person, Benefactor, Property, Ireland

7 memorials
Sir John Gatti

Sir John Gatti

Born Giovanni Maria Emilio in Switzerland, son of Agostino, of the Gatti family.  Barrister, with inherited business interests in the theatre and electrical power supply.  Westminster councillor fr...

Person, Commerce, Politics & Administration, Theatre, Switzerland

1 memorial
Zaehnsdorf bookbinders

Zaehnsdorf bookbinders

From the research published by the Seven Dials Trust: "Zaehnsdorfs was founded in London in 1841 by Joseh Zaehnsdorf. In 1862 he received an honourable mention at the London International Exhibitio...

Group, Commerce, Craft / Design

1 memorial
Grenfell fire

Grenfell fire

Just before 1am a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats. This social housing block was on the north-east edge of the largely wealthy W11 post code, just south of Silchester ...

Event, Tragedy

5 memorials
Grey Coat Hospital / Grey Coat School

Grey Coat Hospital / Grey Coat School

From the school's website: "In 1666, after the Great Fire of London, many inhabitants of the Old City of London moved to the medieval town of Westminster. With its congested and squalid alleys, the...

Group, Education

4 memorials