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A
pillar box is a free-standing
post box where
mail is deposited to be collected by the
Royal Mail and forwarded to the addressee. Pillar boxes have been used since 1852, just 12 years after the introduction of the first adhesive
postage stamps and
uniform penny post. According to the Letter Box Study Group, there are more than 150 recognised designs and varieties of pillar boxes and wall boxes, not all of which have known surviving examples. Royal Mail estimates there are over 100,000 post boxes in the
United Kingdom.
Most traditional British Pillar boxes produced after 1905 are made of
cast iron and are cylindrical in shape, though other shapes have been used; the hexagonal Penfolds, rectangular boxes, and an oval shape used mainly for the large "double aperture" boxes seen in large cities, such as,
London and
Dublin. In recent years boxes manufactured in
glass-fibre or
ABS plastic have been produced.
The advent of the wayside post box can be traced to
Sir Rowland Hill and his Surveyor for the Western District, the noted novelist,
Anthony Trollope who was sent to solve the problem of collecting the mails in the
Channel Islands caused by the irregular sailing times of the Royal Mail
packet boats due to weather and tides. Trollope arrived in
Jersey in early 1852 and his recommendation was to employ a “letter-receiving pillar” he may have seen in Paris.