🧙♂️ THERE’S A REASON FIRE ENGINES, old phone boxes, stop signs and red traffic lights are, well… red!
You can see them from way off. Red post boxes are of course a fully signed, sealed and correctly franked member of this exclusive club that brightens up the Lakeland countryside.
I’ll doubtless be bringing you red blotches of colour for years to come, with less and less to say abbout them other than “And here’s another red post box” but I don’t care, no!
As I’m typing I’m already seeing special sections on the Lakeland Chronicles devoted to quirky topics like this.
Other contenders for fun Top 10 lists that immediately jump to mind are funny old signs you can hardly read, the Lost Gateposts of Lakeland, odd clocks and certainly a collection of those characterful dead trees I see all over the place.
Back to the topic in question, and there’s much more to these bright beauties than will be revealed by a passing glance from afar.
I’ll talk more about the royal cyphers elsewhere, but even the chunky raised letters show great variety depending on the model and the period.
This one has ‘Post Office’ written on the little roof protecting the slot for letters but a few minutes beforehand I passed one that had ‘Royal Mail’ but it was too dark to photograph. I’ll go back!
Then you can see the words ‘Next Collection’ in similar but smaller raised lettering in varying positions or sometimes simply absent as you wander around the towns and villages of Cumbria. It’s funny where I find these little red boxes stuck in walls or on posts on my travels. And I’m always excited as I draw near in case it’s a real rarity.
And to whet your appetite for future pieces where I do talk about the letters of the kings and queens that adorn these familiar urban (and countryside) utilities, here’s a close up for you.
And my question is, do the letters in all these pictures refer to the same king or queen, and if so (or even if not), then which? Click on the pictures to make them bigger and see all the details. Visit the Lakeland Chronicles Facebook group here to share your thoughts!
Happy hunting!
The Laggard of Lakeland 🌄
🧭 (Lakeland Chronicles No.36)
Visit my fun Lakeland Chronicles Facebook group to comment on THIS POST, take part in the regular tricky quizzes and share your own shots ‘n’ stories with us!
⛰ Wainwright Log: 29 of 214 Fells Felled / 0 Books Bashed / Visit
