Mail enthusiast spends 30 years amassing mainland UK's largest post-box collection

SWNS

A mail enthusiast has spent more than 30 years amassing the largest private collection of post boxes in mainland UK.  Steve Knight, 63, began his collection 35 years ago after noticing how the iconic red pillar boxes stood out on the UK's streets.  The Colne Valley Postal History Museum, in Halstead, Essex, is home to 166 post-boxes, 25 stamp vending machines and thousands of pieces of ephemera.  Steve opened the 536 square foot museum, based in his garden, to the public 30 years ago - and has welcomed visitors across the globe.  Steve, who became a stamp collector as a child, said: "Post-boxes are the icon of the British street.  "If you go into central London as a Chinese tourist, the two things they're going to sell is a model of a post-box and a telephone kiosk.  "They are iconic and it's important we preserve them. They're an important part of the social fabric and history of where we live.  "If there's one thing the British can claim as giving to the world - it is the postal service."  Steve, a keen Royal Mail collector, bought his first post-box at an antique shop in Cambs because he thought it'd look 'nice' in his garden.  However his collection soon grew and he opened the Colne Valley Postal History Museum in   The museum is the largest publicly accessible site in the mainland UK - beaten only by the Postal Museum in the Isle of Wight.  The oldest box available for viewing is a 1857 wall box - one of the first to be rolled out as the national standard.  The museum is also home to stamp vending machines - dating back to 1917 - which use pre-decimalisation money.

Transcript

00:00I'm Steve Knight, curator of the Cone Valley Postal History Museum in Halstead, Essex. I

00:10started collecting post boxes 30-35 years ago. I just found one in an antique shop in

00:15Cambridgeshire and thought it would look nice in the garden. And today I have 166 plus two

00:21telephone kiosks and 20-odd stamp vending machines, some bicycles, some uniforms and literally

00:27thousands of other smaller objects. I think they are iconic items of the British Street.

00:33I'd realised at quite a young age that there were different ciphers on the boxes from different

00:38monarchs going back to Queen Victoria but I hadn't really taken it any further than that until I

00:43actually owned one and then a second one and I started to really look closely at them. So when

00:50I first started collecting my one, two or three post boxes were just outside in the garden

00:57on a bench and then by the time I got to twelve I realised that I really needed to get them

01:03under cover and I'd also acquired a lot of other smaller items as well and so the shed that I'm

01:08talking to you from now was purchased and it's eight foot by eight foot, 56 square feet and I

01:15thought it would take all of the collection and give me plenty of room for expansion.

01:20Well of course it actually filled up really quickly and I had to go ahead and build a second one

01:25and the second shed was originally 10 feet by 30 so 300 square feet. I've now had to extend that to 50

01:34feet by 10 so we've got 500 square feet there and 56 square feet here and I've still got post boxes all

01:40over the garden that I really need to get under cover. As a museum we have a very good relationship

01:46with Royal Mail so if they have a rare box and they're not quite sure what to do with it and they

01:50don't have a use for it then they'll quite often offer it to us and they've been extremely generous

01:55over the years. People get to visit the museum on a regular basis we have open days normally in

02:00September as part of Heritage Open Days each year that's a national program that's coordinated by the

02:05National Trust and we like to get people to come through the museum to see that but both in the two

02:10sheds and in the garden and even in the garage where we do a lot of the restoration work and typically

02:16I'd expect to get 100 people on an open day. So over the years many thousands of people have come

02:22through here and seen this collection. It is the largest collection of post boxes on mainland UK that

02:27is available to view. The National Postal Museum does have a good collection but unfortunately they're

02:34mostly in storage in a big warehouse outside London and they're not actually available. There's just a small

02:40selection in their central London headquarters which you can go and see and I say the mainland because

02:47my good friend Arthur Reader on the Isle of Wight has if not the same number probably more than I do

02:53but you do need to get the ferry over to see that. If I had to choose one item from the collection as my

02:58favourite it would definitely be the large size Edward VIII pillar box. Edward VIII abdicated at the end of

03:061936 so it was a very very short reign but not before about 120 post boxes had been made of which

03:1312 were in the large A size. Friends and family have been very tolerant over the years they kind of

03:19understand that this is a major hobby for me and takes up an awful lot of time and they've been

03:25extremely helpful. I guess they think I'm a bit eccentric filling my garden with with post boxes and

03:31telephone kiosks. Over the years many many people I've met have formed great friendships with me

03:37and those friends and my family keep a constant lookout on their travels for unusual post boxes

03:43and they're forever sending me pictures and in fact I got some pictures from Lincolnshire from

03:47good friend Elaine up there last week showing the first of the new Charles III lamp post mounted boxes

03:54which had been installed about a couple of miles from her house so that's that's I haven't seen one yet

03:59but that's great I know I've got to go and take a look at that. My wife has been fantastic obviously

04:05she's had to put up with these outside her house for the last 30 years she does try to grow plants

04:11around them so she doesn't have to look at them but she's been extremely good and I'm very grateful

04:16for the support I've had from her and the rest of the family

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