Postbox Runs!

Thanks to Apryl and the 100 Marathon Club Aspiring Members page for the idea for this weekend's running - to collect different types of post boxes! Armed with the necessary info, Andrew and I set off on Saturday, to collect as many as we could find of the six different royal cyphers to be found on UK post boxes today.....

Living in London has it's plus points - there are a lot of post boxes! The first we found was a Victoria one (the oldest type)...

Closely followed by an Elizabeth II one (the newest type!)

And then a George V one, all within 3 miles!

Things seemed to be going first class, but then we hit some delays and didn't find another type for about 10 miles. It was a nice 10 miles though, all through St James' Park, Green Park and a lap of Hyde Park, including a slight distraction with a coffee and sit in the sunshine (the first moment in the year that it is warm enough to sit outside is always a highlight and should be celebrated!) 

Then, on the way home, our luck picked up again, and we found an Edward VII one....

And just across the road, another Victoria one, but a special one celebrating the bicentenary of Anthony Trollope, who introduced pillar boxes to Britain in 1852, and this street (Fleet Street) became one of the first streets in Britain to have a pillar box, in 1855!

After 17 miles we were back home, but still missing two types. We couldn't leave it at a second class job, so after looking up where we could find the two elusive red boxes, we headed out again this morning for another 13 miles...

First stop on the rounds was in Wapping where there is an Edward VIII post box. This was a good find! Edward VIII post boxes are rare, as he only reigned for less than a year and after he abdicated, most boxes with his cypher on were either modified or replaced. 

Enveloped in a feeling of satisfaction from this find, we parcelled ourselves off past St Pauls, and down towards the Inner Temple, to find the George VI post box. There are only 5 of these ones in London, and this is the only one in this area, but disaster almost struck, as the Temple complex has been closed because of Covid! Fortunately, Andrew is charming, and he charmed the security guard, who kindly let us in (probably only because our story of why we needed to take a photo of this particular post box was too bizarre for us to have made it up).

Then, to finish things off properly, we went in search of a golden post box. This took us down the Strand and Whitehall, where we got distracted by a parakeet.....

And soon we made it to Westminster, to find the golden post box there, which commemorates London being the host city of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

 

And all the boxes we found were Priority Post boxes too (where the home self-test Covid tests get posted and picked up from) - bonus! It was so warm and sunny, it feels like spring is on the way, so we had a celebratory coffee in St James' Park, before running home.

The Post Box Run is a first class idea, and gets a stamp of approval!