Birchington Heritage Trust   - Newsletter   

The Post Boxes of Birchington

by Bernard La Roche

Committee member, Bernard La Roche has a confession to make....he belongs to the Letter Box Study Group of Great Britain. This, to the uninitiated means that he cannot help walking past a letter box or post box without taking a picture of it. He even asks his friends to take pictures of them when they are abroad as many British letter boxes still exist in places like Cyprus and New Zealand. In this article, he shares some of his fascinating knowledge with us.

 
I happened to be driving down a side road in Birchington one day when I noticed a free- standing letter box which I thought worthy of a photograph. I stopped the car and walked back. Trying to get the letter box in focus, I noticed a little old lady who hesitated with a strange look in her eye and seemed to be assessing my sanity. I asked the letter box to smile, took the photograph politely and told the little old lady she could now pass. I still see her in Birchington from time to time and smile.

Every letter box has a cypher on it which tells us in which reign it was erected. This cypher is very useful as it can determine the centre of an old village. The first post boxes with the cypher "VR" were put up in Queen Victoria's reign after the appearance of the Penny Black in 1840. Before that, there were no stamps, no postmen and, of course, no letter boxes.

As villages grew in size, more and more letter boxes were required to meet the needs of the day. Then the cypher of the current ruling monarch would appear on the box. Queen Victoria was followed by her son, Edward VII with the letters "E" and "R with a small "VII" inside and a crown above. 

George V retained the crown, but just had a plain "GR".

The rarest cypher is that of Edward VIII whose reign was so very short. His "E" and "R" stand next to each other with the number "VIII" in between the two letters. 

George VI reverted to more ornate lettering for his post box cypher, whereas our present Queen has adopted a much plainer style.

However, since 1953, boxes made for Scotland have the Scottish crown rather than the Queen's own cypher which was felt to be unacceptable.

We now have only one last post-box in Birchington bearing the “VR” cypher. It is to be found set in the wall on the corner of Alpha Road   and Epple Road. Here the letters "V" and "R" are in plain letters set either side of the crown.

Birchington also has boxes with the royal cyphers of Edward VII, George V, George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.