While walking through a rural area outside London, early in my year-long stay in England, I came across a bright-red postbox embedded in a very old stone wall in the tiny village of Shalford, outside Guildford. Although self-standing pillar-shaped postboxes are ubiquitous, this one sparked my curiosity. Why is this postbox – owned and maintained by the Royal Mail as a public service – embedded in a stone wall? and what does the insignia, embossed on the surface, mean? I later did some research online and found myself embarking on a months-long quest for more postboxes. Read on!
David Kotz 