Welcome to Part 4 of this series on letterboxes in Loughborough! First, I have managed to confirm that the VR pillar boxes on Forest Road and Moor Lane which I covered in Part 2, were made by Andrew Handyside! Here's the proof from the front of the Moor Lane box:
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| Andrew Handyside Victorian pillar box on Moor Lane |
In Part 3, we had a look at pillar boxes from the reign of Edward VII, George V, and George VI, so now we'll move on to pillar boxes installed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Important to note, however, that when she came to the throne, there were still new GVI boxes available, and this supply would have been used up first, before new boxes with the EIIR cipher were made and installed.I must admit, considering how much Loughborough has grown in size over the past 70 years, I was surprised that there weren't more EIIR pillar boxes, although, of course, there are different styles of posting boxes, as well as different kinds of posting boxes from this era.
Some EIIR boxes once had directional markers on their top, like the one on Ashby Road, at its junction with Ashby Avenue:
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| Missing directional marker on the Ashby Road EIIR box |
Most of the pillar box tops seem to be of the fluted design: |
| Fluted top, Derwent Drive |
and I have only found one box so far, that doesn't have a fluted top:So far we've seen round pillar boxes, but there are also several square boxes dotted around Loughborough. These were first manufactured in 1996, and are for franked mail only, hence them mostly being on industrial estates and business parks:  |
| Square box on Prince William Road, which stands next to a K box |
As for manufacturers, most of our pillar boxes were made by Carron, but we do have at least one made by Abbot. These boxes, known as K boxes were introduced in 1980. The Woodbrook Road box is one such, and although it's not always possible to get behind a box to look at the maker's mark, it's likely that the box on Prince William Road, and the one on Mount Grace Road might also be Abbots, but the one in Gorse Covert shopping centre, and the one outside the post office off Epinal Way, near Park Road, are by 'Carronade'.
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| K box on Woodbrook Road, where there used to be a post office |
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| K box on Woodbrook Road |
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| Maker's mark on Woodbrook Road K box |
We also have a couple of pillar boxes made by Machan, one of which seems to be dated 2008 (which is contemporaneous with the building of the housing estate (Fairmeadows) in which it is sited). This type of pillar box dates from the 1990s, when this more traditional shaped post box replaced the K box, and the words Post Office were replaced with Royal Mail.
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| A Machan EIIR pillar box on High Street outside the former King's Head |
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| Maker's mark on the High Street pillar box |
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| Pillar box on Haddon Way |
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| Maker's mark on Haddon Way pillar box |
Just as an aside, our sorting office, down on Nottingham Road, was built in 1966, and bears the EIIR cipher:
Well, I think that's about all I can fit into one blog post, but there is plenty more to say about letter boxes in Loughborough! Pop back to the blog for the next letter box installment, which will cover lampboxes and wallboxes from all eras!
If you want to look back over earlier posts about Loughborough's letterboxes, here are the links:
Part 1 - the anonymous pillar box
Part 2 - the Victorian pillar boxes
Part 3 - pillar boxes 1910-1952
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posted by lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for typos which are all mine!
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