Christmas Trees

 Time for a See It On A Postcard Thursday Postcard Hunt this week and its Christmas Trees. All sizes still available from the garden centre near me but

Inge Löök's grannies have already decorated theirs and have decamped with all the essentials for Christmas  to the coast.  They have thought of everything, including an inflatable igloo.

PHQ Card - 2018: Christmas (Illustration - Andrew Davidson)

Meanwhile the posties will still be working until Christmas Eve for the post must get through.  This is one of the big city postboxes with lots of room for Christmas cards and London always has lots of Christmas trees of every size and interpretation. David Hockney's 'Bigger Christmas Trees' may be the most eye catching this year for lovers of lights.

Post

 

1985: 350 Years of Royal Mail Public Postal Service (Design: Paul Hogarth)

The romance of the Postbus weaving its way through the countryside over bridges and rivers, sadly no longer with us, but what an excellent way to travel.

1990: Europa - Post Office Buildings (Design - P Vahtero)

On to Lapland in 1840 and arriving at the Postal Agency, Nuvvus.  In the background is Nuvvus Ailigas Fell which rises up from the shores of the Tonojoki River near the village. In contrast the other stamp is the large and new Postal Centre building in Turku

2009: Vintage Postal Transport

Pedal powered postmen and their Raleigh bicycles outside what I think is the Palazzo Parisio in Valletta which housed the Maltese GPO between 1886 and 1973 (apart from when it was temporarily moved during WW2)

2003: Post - Rural House Mailbox (Design - Erna de Vries)

And happiness the post has arrived in a pretty mailbox.

Sunday Stamps theme this week is - Post - See It On A Postcard

Flatford Postbox

Ice-Cream kiosk and EIIR Lamp Box, Flatford, Suffolk

While on holiday I took a wander along the River Stour and arrived at Flatford, made famous by Constable's huge landscape painting of 'Flatford Mill'.  An ice cream shop is always a welcome sight especially on a warm summer's day, this kiosk also has the added attraction of a postbox (postcards available at the nearby National Trust shop)

Postbox CO7 382, Flatford Rd, East Bergholt, Suffolk

The postbox could do with some TLC. 

Art in Aland

1986: Centenary of the Artists' Colony in Önningeby

A summer picnic what could be more delightful and this one is a gathering of artists.  Formed in 1886 an artists colony was born in the village of Önningeby around the Finnish landscape painter Victor Westerholm.  It was one of many Nordic artistic colonies in the late 19th Century inspired by the impressionists and painting outdoors. In 1884 Westerholm had bought a summer house in Önningeby by the Lemstrom Canal and encouraged his friends to join him in the Åland Islands to paint.  I think the postcard shows the first summer gathering of the eight friends in 1886 and over time the numbers would grow until with the coming of the first world war and the death of Westerholm in 1919 it came to an end.    

The stamp shows a drawing of 1891 by Victor Westerholm in indian ink depicting the scenery of  Önningeby.  It is said the area is not particularly scenic but the existence of many large farm houses meant there were lots of places for the artists to stay.  Today one of those farmhouses, the Jonesas Farm, has been converted into a museum and exhibits paintings by some of the artists who stayed in the colony, unusually for the time a large number of those artists were women.

1984 Maximum Card 5 "Åland among the Nordic Countries"

The village of Önningeby and its museum is vaguely in the area of my arrow above, 4 miles north east of Mariehamn. Victor Westerholm came from Turku on the coast of Finland, a 6 hour ferry journey away and the artists came from both Finland and Sweden so you can also see the ferry routes they would have taken.

I wonder if Åland Post took the ferry or flew to Turku

when they attended the Spring Postage Stamp and Postcard Show, their luggage would have included this Exhibition Card whose theme in 2017 was mail boxes, many of which are painted, the islanders letting their inner artist free.

The exhibition stamp shows the box in place (often they are hung in rows so you can just see the one next to it) with the exhibition cancel which as the Åland Islanders speak Swedish uses the Swedish name for Turku - Åbo.

This week's Sunday Stamps II prompt is the letter A - for Art, Åland and Åbo - See It On A Postcard.

 

Ornate Objects

2001: Al-Khanjar A'suri

The Omani dagger or khanjar not only appears on stamps of Oman but also their banknotes, is part of the national flag and printed on all official documents.  It is worn on ceremonial occasions and can be made of gold, silver, copper or brass. One has to be wealthy opt for the gold and silver and the time it can take to make can vary from a few weeks to several months depending on the material used.  An ornate national symbol.    

1989: 300th Anniversary of Arp Schnitger Organ

Of course if one wanted to see something really ornate then the era to turn to would be the baroque and above is the largest surviving baroque organ in northern Europe which can be heard every Sunday in St James Church, Hamburg making full use of its 3000 pipes and 60 registers.

1982: National Postal Museum Card Series of Post House Signs

Post office signs were just as ornate. This one is owned by the Museum for Post and Communication (the renamed National Postal Museum) in  Frankfurt am Main,  The museum gets rave reviews on Trip Advisor.

1975: Stamp Day

The stamp like the card shows a Post House sign of the Royal Prussian Establishment for Transport. At the time the different post house companies delivered mail to specific countries and a register was available to look up where to hand over ones post for the different destinations. How much easier it is today to just pop a letter in

1977: Stamp Day

a postbox.  This is a Belgian pillar box from 1852. The old Belgium pillar boxes are among my favourites although the earliest I've seen is this one.

The Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the letter O - here for Oman, Ornate and Organ - more Os over at See It On A Postcard

Pass the Post

Postbox LA8 39, Levens, near the Strickland Arms, Cumbria

The arrow of the coast to coast National Cycle Route 70 from Walney Island (the Irish Sea) to the Wear (the North Sea)  points the rider onward.  The perfect opportunity to post postcards in the wall box on the way past.

The Postal Picture will be quiet for a few week as I'm heading to an island of green postboxes, taking pictures and twirling the postcard carousels.   

Passing the Post Box

This man holding a large cauliflower always makes me smile.  I like to think he is returning home from his Allotment with this freshly dug prize specimen tucked under his arm for dinner.  The post box where he is posting his letter is another prize specimen for this is the hexagonal 'Penfold' (named after its designer) and some post box enthusiasts will travel the country for a sight and picture of one of these ornate pillar boxes.  The first one was installed in 1866 and they continued to be manufactured, with small design variations, for another thirteen years.  Their continuing popularity with people meant that around 1988/1990 Royal Mail introduced a replica made of cast iron from a mold of the original Penfold and installed them in places of historic interest; so as not to confuse the original with the replicas these have a plate on the base indicating its more modern date.  There is no indication on the postcard of where the box is or was but the year the photograph was taken is stated, 1949.

More 'Postcards for the Weekend' on the theme - Post/Mail Related Items at Connections to the World

Pillar to Post

The mysterious 'bonus' offered by Violet Sky for anyone showing a Queen Victoria stamp some weeks ago was to choose a theme.  Yippee!   It was a nanosecond before I chose something postal or the post box and here is why.  There are hundreds postbox variations in the UK but more pertinent is that this year is 200th anniversary of the birth of the author Anthony Trollope, an employee of the post office from 1834 to 1867 and as a Surveyor's clerk involved in the logistics of providing roadside boxes.  Letters at the time could only be handed in to Receiving Houses and long distances might be traveled to post letters. Countries like France and Belgium had been using roadside boxes for some time and Trollope believed it was time to introduce them into the postal system here and installed an experimental box on the island of Guernsey.   This, the oldest pillar box in the British Isles, was installed on 8 February 1853 and is celebrated on the Guernsey FDC.  I believe the box is still in its original location in the centre of St Peter Port.  The stamp is a photograph of it with the background specially treated to give the pretty effect of a watercolour.

Of course the box was a great success so mainland Britain got one and it was in my neck of the woods

just up the road (or rather the M6) in the city of Carlisle (which is the postmark).  Unfortunately it no longer exists and neither does the Victorian post office it stood near, but there is a plaque on the wall informing passers by of the date - 1853 - when the first mainland post box was installed in Botchergate and directs the reader elsewhere to the replica pillar box outside the Old Town Hall.  The FDC's Victorian drawing on the left also shows a box that no longer exists which was one of those first five roadside boxes in London erected in 1855 (No 1 was in Fleet Street), all destroyed in the World War II blitz bombing. The stamps used on the cover are of a Green 1857 Pillar Box (one of a set from 2002). This wonderfully ornate box was designed by the Department of Science and Art. The posting aperture was in the roof of the box which shows a certain optimism of expecting dry weather and sunshine in these rainy islands. The first of these boxes even had a ceramic compass set into the roof.

Here is the rest of the 2002 stamp set showing the different types of pillar boxes through time on a FDC produced by the Trollope Society, which unfortunately I do not own but when I first saw it portrayed have lusted after it ever since.    

The envelopes surrounding Anthony Trollope are all addressed to characters from his novels.

The Victorians in their usual enthusiastic manner produced a great variety of pillar boxes until 1859 when the Post Office decided to standardise the design.  The growing demand for roadside posting facilities also resulted in a cheaper method of meeting that desire, the installation of small wall boxes from 1857

Here is a miniature sheet of four different types of wall boxes. These were also later also attached to lamp posts but today are attached to a variety of types of posts but still referred to as lamp boxes.  The royal insignia on the boxes are an easy indicator of their age. One of my favourites is the enamel plated Ludlow box (second from the left) so called because they were made by James Ludlow who won the contract in 1912 to supply boxes to sub post offices (many also had a rear door which opened inside the post office).  The one shown must have been one of the last to be installed as it bears the ER royal insignia (Queen Elizabeth's coronation was 1953) and from 1954 they were made without the enamel plate. Is it time to collect the mail now?

Postie had just opened this one in Suffolk when I was passing by.

 

An entry to Sunday Stamps II theme of - Post Boxes or Postal Themed - more postings  here

Cast Iron Australian

A wonderfully ornate Australian Letter Box from 1890 which stands 5' 9" (1.8 metres) high.  The vertical slot seen was so people on horseback could post letters without dismounting.  I presume from the postmark incorporated into the stamp that it is, or was, in Pyrmont, New South Wales.  The first ever Australian box was cast in bronze, the design, by TW Levinge, was based on the 1850s Belgium and Parisian boxes.  Installed in the suburbs of Sydney in 1856, they became widespread even being exported to New Zealand.  It was not until the 1870s that they were painted red.

Bubb and Son from their Victoria foundry in Sydney (their name is on the door) made these boxes adding to the tradition of wonderful metalwork by 19th century craftsmen and are commonly referred to as Bubbs Boxes.  (Robert Bubb was a migrant to Australia from Gloucestershire in England)  The rounded top is a stylised  Australian flower of the waratah bush surrounded by acanthus leaves.  The copperplate writing looks as though it runs all the way round underneath.  There is also a more traditional opening on the other side.   Not many of these boxes survive, some are no longer used but have been adopted by the local area as historic pieces of street furniture. Australia Post has one that it lends out to people for events.   

Nestling Box

Post Box No LA12 54, Bardsea Post Office, The Yews, Bardsea

A late Spring so the hedges are looking bare but the blossom has arrived so things are looking up.  Post your letters here, carry on up the hill past the church and  turn left and down the hill and head for Roy's Ice Cream van and  his 29 flavours, two new for this year.  Gaze out over Morecambe Bay while you lick, the suns warm and alls well with the world. 

Nomad and Postbox

Salthouse Road, Barrow in Furness

 It has been unremitting rain here, not a sign of snow. If I walk to town I'll pass this postbox but opposite there are usually cars parked by the boat, but on this snowy day a winter ago only the boat was there.  It was an opportunity I had waited for, click went my camera.

Wishing everyone a Happy Holiday Season

All Directions

LA11 118, Windermere Rd, Grange Over Sands

Cafés to the left of them, cafés to the right of them, cafés in front of them. No perhaps just not in front but a nicely positioned wall box between the railway station and car parking, and being Grange Over Sands, lots of tea shops.  A walk along promenade, a twirl around the park with its ornamental ducks, buy postcards, have tea and cakes then

Post Box LA11 118, Windermere Rd, Grange Over Sands

  pop the postcard in the George V wall box

Victorian Shadow

Post Box CH1 436, Chester Town Hall

I've been to Chester quite a few times but never noticed this Victorian post box outside the Town Hall before, perhaps because the concourse is usually thronged with people or maybe I am distracted by the large sculpture outside. However at the weekend I passed by in the quiet of early morning with the light slanting on the building

Post Box Number CH1 436, Town Hall, Chester.

 which means this is a indistinct, but in mitigation shapely, photo of a post box as I was beguiled by the shadow.

On the Green

Post Box IP17 4671 at The Green, Snape

Not fairies, but a post box at the bottom of this garden in Suffolk 

Black, White and Red

Post Box CH1 104 - Bridge Street, Chester

Post box and black and white buildings, irresistible for a photo opportunity.  One of the old buildings on Bridge Street which has a variety of architectural styles along its length.  There are many wooden black and white buildings in Chester, this particular one was renovated a few years ago so is in pristine condition.   The outside seating for the Italian Restaurant, Carluccio, can be seen on the left.

There are a lot of double post boxes in the town probably because it is a tourist destination so a profusion of postcards will be sent from here.

Line Up

Post Box Number LA20 35, Foxfield

All means of communication in a line up, post box, telephone box and bus stop by the side of the main road up the Cumbrian coast, the A595.  Opposite is Foxfield railway station but the main attraction is the location of the post box which is designated "Prince of Wales, Foxfield" and that welcoming pub is just to the right of the post box.

Cheers

Grizedale

Wall Box Number LA22 162

I always like the swirling scroll of Edward VII (1901-1910) on a postbox

although this one at the Grizedale Forest Visitors Centre looks as though it may be due a lick of paint

 The parked car outdoes it in redness.

Belgian Letter Box, or should I say, Brievenbus

While on holiday I came across this wonderfully ornate, and sturdy, postbox located on the square called Regentieplein near the railway station in the Belgian town of Sint-Niklaas.  Unlike the GB boxes the design is

repeated on the back with the addition of the Belgian Lion from their coat of arms and the post office name in French - Postes, and Dutch - Posterijen.  I know nothing about Belgian postboxes but happily last year for Stamp Day the Belgian post office  issued a miniature sheet on old and new post boxes so from that I know that this box dates from the 1930s, a time when a box this size was a must.

In The Post

 A lake and silver birch trees what a perfect place to pick up your post.  I can almost hear the birds chirping and fish plopping in the water.   Not only do Finland Posti produce fantastic stamps they also create wonderful maximum cards like this.

 With all the details a collector could wish on the back. This was last years stamp issue on  personal self designed mailboxes of which I have another two

I think if I ever visit Finland, apart from loading up with lots of postcards my camera would be on overdrive clicking mail boxes.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps

Seeing Double

 Post Box Numbers LA4 247 and 248

Two pillar boxes outside the main post office in the coastal resort of Morecambe. Take your choice of which one to post your cards. I wonder if one fills more than the other.