East Sussex: post boxes

Here is a small offering of post boxes I spotted during a recent week’s holiday in East Sussex (always looking!).

The oldest was in the tiny hamlet of West Dean, in East Sussex not West, a charming collection of ancient houses nestled in a secluded South Downs valley behind Cuckmere Haven, a location more easily reached on foot than by car, a place that time seems to have forgotten. Amongst its many old treasures – there were also a medieval dovecote and a gorgeous terracotta bird on a rooftop – was this lovely old Victoria wall box, set in a superbly crafted flint stone wall.

To get a photograph of the George V wall box at Birling Gap (below left), I had to brave a howling gale and light, driving rain – that’s post-box dedication for you! If you don’t know Birling Gap, it’s at the eastern end of the mighty Seven Sisters chalk cliffs on England’s south coast. My photo, above, of this impressive landscape was taken in the same howling gale.

On the right, above, is another George V wall box, this one discovered in the small village of Brightling. This box is slightly unusual as it is a Ludlow wall box, one of the wooden – rather than cast iron – boxes made by James Ludlow & Son in Birmingham. The large black-and-white enamel name plate is the giveaway and this box is even more unusual as it doesn’t have the plate that lists location, post box number and mail collection times – there were holes where the plate was originally attached but, as you can see, it looks like someone’s since stuck a couple of stickers on the front instead.

Brightling was interesting for another reason too ... more on that in my next blog post.

Dorset: post boxes

My Christmas holiday host is well trained – she knows my predilection for old-looking post boxes and is happy to (safely) slam on the brakes when she spots one, or I yell “post box” in her ear. These are a few we spotted as we gadded about the highways and country lanes of Dorset (and the lucky last is from a hop over the border to Somerset).

First up (below left) is this slightly-the-worse-for-wear Edward VII box (DT2 73) that was attached to a post by the side of the road near the little hamlet of Up Sydling, a rather out-of-the-way place to be but we were chasing up my friend’s ancestors’ habitations.

In a much better state of repair and looking very photogenic in its old stone wall, was this lovely old Victoria wall box (DT2 52) (above right, and below) in the historic town of Cerne Abbas.

In the wall of a house in Sherborne, we found this rather unusual Victoria wall box (DT9 6). Named after its makers, James Ludlow & Son of Birmingham, it’s called a Ludlow wall box, and, unlike most old post boxes, which were traditionally made of cast iron, the Ludlows’ were made of wood, though they did usually have an enamel name plate on the front and a thin sheet of steel covering the door.

Moving forward in time, we found this George V wall box (DT9 37) (below left) conveniently positioned underneath the town’s notice board in a small village with the intriguing name of Ryme Intrinseca. And, below right, here’s another from Cerne Abbas, a George VI pillar box (DT2 98), also conveniently situated, in the town's main street.

This last (DT9 67) is the intruder from Milborne Port in Somerset and a relatively modern wall box from the reign of Elizabeth II. It looked freshly painted, in that wonderfully vibrant Post Office red that everyone recognises.