Dorset postboxes – Bournemouth
| Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:37 Chris Downer |
There are 286 postboxes in Bournemouth, ranging from the standard pillar box to less common designs both early and modern. (For simplicity in the sometimes complex disparity between administrative and postal boundaries, I have included boxes within the borough boundary and also those outside but which are postally in Bournemouth. This accounts for the BH1 to BH11 postcode districts, plus one BH12 box which is just on the Bournemouth side of the boundary!) These can be viewed on Google Maps, colour-coded by type of box – BH1-2, BH4-7 and southern BH8 are on the Bournemouth (south) map and BH3, the majority of BH8 and BH9-11 (plus the one box in BH12) on the Bournemouth (north) map. Here they are: Pillar boxes There is one early-design pillar box – the hexagonal ‘Penfold’ design:  The vast majority of Bournemouth’s boxes are standard pillar boxes – 203 in total. 28 are Victorian: Five are of the period 1879-87 in which the ‘VR’ cipher was omitted (the last of these, you will notice, has a high slot):      The remaining 23 are standard boxes:                        42 are of Edward VII:                                           85 are of George V:                                                                                      |
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| Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:58 Chris Downer |
16 are of George VI:                And 32 are of Elizabeth II:                                [[[]]]  Modern pillar boxes The borough of Bournemouth has eleven ‘Type K’ boxes, introduced in the very late 1970s:            Large pillar boxes There are 35 fatter versions of the standard pillar box: Four Victorian:     Five Edward VII:      Nine George V:          One George VI:  And the remaining 16 are Elizabeth II:                Double-aperture boxes These do exist from Victorian times, but all of Bournemouth’s 10 examples are Elizabeth II:           Wall boxes Bournemouth has six of these – one Victorian one set into the wall of a house and the other five set into their own brick pillars (one Victorian, two George V, one George VI, one Elizabeth II):       Lamp boxes Designed to be clasped to lampposts and wooden poles, these are nowadays often seen mounted on a metal pole such as all but the first example here, which is bolted to a wall:         There is also a modern version of the lamp box, although it would never have been intended to be bolted to a lamppost. Bournemouth’s is a recent replacement for a pillar box which had been vandalised:  Business boxes These boxes started appearing in the mid-1990s and are for franked mail only – franked mail cannot be put in ordinary boxes and previously had to be handed in at a post office counter unless the Royal Mail collected from the business. Bournemouth has four:    Shop boxes A few designs of boxes designed for use in retail outlets (usually indoor) have emerged over the last 15 years or so. One design is often found inside post offices and supermarkets (the last of these was installed some time during 2010):     Another design seems to be almost exclusive to Sainsbury’s superstores, although there is also one within a branch of Debenham's:    And another is used on garage forecourts, though this box was removed some time in 2009:  |
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