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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

AC Cars Limited

AC Cars Limited

AC Cars are Britain’s oldest car manufacturers having been producing cars since 1901. Founded by John Weller and John Portwine.  The company name comes from an early model, the Auto Carrier, pictur...

Group, Engineering, Transport

1 memorial
Malcolm Campbell

Malcolm Campbell

Holder of land and water speed records. Born Chislehurst, Kent. He broke the land speed record for the first time in 1924 and went on to break it a further nine times (five at Daytona Beach, Florid...

Person, Sport / Games, Transport, USA

2 memorials
Thames Navigation Commission

Thames Navigation Commission

Created in 1751 with responsibility for locks on the river down to Staines.  Subsumed into the Thames Conservancy in 1866. Three generations of the Treacher family held senior positions in the Tha...

Group, Transport

2 memorials
Gravesend Pier

Gravesend Pier

Designed by William Tierney Clark. During its early years it was used by millions of passengers, but by the turn of the century, it had fallen into disuse owing to the arrival of the railways. A Gr...

Building, Transport

1 memorial
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

Previously viewed

Spratt's

Spratt's

Canine food specialists and operators of the "largest dog biscuit factory in the world" in Fawe Street, Poplar. Started by an American entrepreneur James Spratt, who introduced the biscuit to Lond...

Group, Commerce, Animals, Food & Drink, USA

1 memorial
Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Born at Fieldhead, in the parish of Birstal, not far from Leeds, Yorkshire. Emigrated to US in 1794. Died Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Chemist. Discovered oxygen. Had a stutter all his life. Inve...

Person, Science, USA

4 memorials
Nike

Nike

Ancient Greek goddess who personified victory.  She was the daughter of the Titan Pallas and the goddess Styx. Our photograph shows the famous 'Winged Victory of Samothrace', also called the 'Nike ...

Fiction, Religion

1 memorial
Henry Fawcett

Henry Fawcett

Economist, politician and educational reformer. Born Salisbury. Blinded in a shooting accident as a young man. The first blind MP. As Postmaster General (1880-4) he developed the parcel post and in...

Person, Economist, Education, Politics & Administration, Social Welfare

5 memorials
Frank Worthy
War dead, WW1
1 memorial