Stamps to feature on 50 postboxes across the UK

As widely reported in this morning's press and online media, Royal Mail is installing plaques on

postboxes across the country to mark the 50th anniversary of special stamps.

Each of the 50 plaques will feature a stamp connected to the village, town or city, ranging from London and Leeds to Llandudno and Blackpool.

Stamps on the postboxes include images of Winston Churchill, Bagpuss, Dylan Thomas, Robert Burns, the Giant’s Causeway, York Minster and Sherlock Holmes.

Over 2,600 special stamps have been included in the programme over the past 50 years, with every new stamp design approved by the Queen before it is issued.  (See Royal Mail Special Stamps microsite.)

The full list of stamps and locations as provided by Royal Mail.  Some of these are not very precise, so we will welcome reports of more precise locations, and identification of which stamp (eg Edinburgh Castle) if you find one.

               

Sad to note the absence of Wales and Northern Ireland from this list when there have been plenty of stamps with identifiable locations in both.

And a warning to all bloggers - don't rely on the press release being correct. After I alerted RM through social media to the absence of Llandudno, the site was updated with the missing locations, including Woodstock, and Wales and Northern Ireland. Didn't occur to me to actually count the number of lines in the table!


UPDATE 8 June 2015
Brian has sent details of another postbox which has a plate on it (see right).  This is in London's Fleet Street, near the old Daily Express building.

"This plaque commemorates the bicentenary of the birth of Anthony Trollope(1815-1882) who introduced pillar boxes to the United Kingdom in 1852.

In 1855 this street became one of the first in London to have a pillar box." 

UPDATE 12 JUNE
Royal Mail are using social media to keep people updated.  A lot of links are in the 'comments' below; I don't have time to add all the pictures to the blog at this time, but may do a page later. Thanks to our Anonymous contributors.

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UPDATE 1 July 2024!   The Royal Mail mini-website has gone, although you can get through to what it looked like via the Wayback Archive.  But here is a photo that MM took in Keswick recently (yes, 2024) showing the Derwentwater stamp.  The URL on the postbox is no longer valid - indeed the root is now a site in Indonesian!  I wouldn't suggest you click through that.

Winston Churchill	Woodstock, Oxfordshire
Millennium Centre	Cardiff
Dylan Thomas	Swansea
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct	Wrexham
Llandudno Pier	Llandudno
Tenby Lifeboat	Tenby
CS Lewis Narnia	Belfast
Peace Bridge	Derry/Londonderry
The Giant’s Causeway	Antrim
Armagh Observatory	Armagh
Edinburgh Castle	Edinburgh
Glasgow Tram	Glasgow
Comics, Beano	Dundee
Andy Murray at  Wimbledon	Dunblane
Sir Walter Scott	Abbotsford, Scottish Borders
Golf	St Andrews
Robert Burns	Alloway, Ayr
Blackpool Tower	Blackpool
Manchester Town Hall	Manchester
Liverpool Cathedral	Liverpool
Richard Arkwright inventor	Preston
Wallace and Gromit	Bristol
Eddystone Lighthouse	Plymouth
Met Office	Exeter
Abbotsbury Swannery	Abbotsbury, Dorset
Chamberlain Square	Birmingham
Biddulph Grange	Stoke
Severn Valley Railway	Worcester Kidderminster
William Shakespeare	Stratford upon Avon
Charles Darwin	Shrewsbury
Leicester University	Leicester
The Oak Stamp	Nottinghamshire
Ely Cathedral	Ely
E-type Jaguar	Coventry
Max Perutz	Cambridge
York Minster	York   (see below)
High Level Bridge	Newcastle
Nicola Adams Olympics	Leeds
Jessica Ennis Olympics	Sheffield
The Deep	Hull
Derwentwater	Lake District (see below)
Wembley	Wembley
Bagpuss	Canterbury
World Wildlife Fund	Woking
Magna Carta	Runnymede
Timekeeper	Greenwich
Queen’s Jubilee stamp	London
50th ann of the BBC	Portland Place, London
Sherlock Holmes	Baker St, London
Mary Seacole	Brixton, London

Keswick, Cumbria, postbox still adorned with the poster showing the 1981 National Trust Derwentwater stamp advertising the old 50 years of Royal Mail Special Stamps website.

24 July 2024: MM has been on his travels again, and stumbled across this box in York

York postbox still adorned with the poster showing the A-Z of the UK 2012, York Minster stamp advertising the old 50 years of Royal Mail Special Stamps website.

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