According to Tigg who was told this by the travel writer Pete McCarthy (it must be true) the post box nearest to my flat is one of the oldest in the country. Next to what was once a rather eccentric greetings card shop it has now morphed into a pretty reasonable late night, fast food takeaway; with contrasting bins.
Looking around the city, talking about, drawing and measuring up post boxes I have come to realise that there are quite major differences to their designs. What I think of as A Pillar Box is the National Standard pillar box (1859) but there are many variations. It was Anthony Trollope, the novelist, a Post Office surveyor at the time who first introduced them, to the Channel Islands in 1853. These were red, but subsequent post boxes were painted dark green.
In an attempt to unify the design a factory in Birmingham was asked to be the manufacturer. Unfortunately the instructions they were given were wrongly measured, so the first four boxes were eight feet (2.4 metres) tall. It also had a vertical slot for the letters.
www.postalheritage.org.uk/history
