New Philatelic Counter in London from 2019! (Update on Trafalgar Square)

As mentioned in August, thanks to our reader C, the 'Trafalgar Square' Post Office in King William IV Street London will close during December (date to be announced.)

This means that there is no comprehensive stockist of Royal Mail collectable stamps in Post Offices in the central London.  I'm sure there is a comment here somewhere that Eastcheap (City of London) PO no longer has a dedicated philatelic counter (comments aren't searchable in the same way that the blog is).  However poor Trafalgar Square may have been on occasion, it was always better than nothing, which is what we will have now.

I have suggested to Royal Mail philatelic that they could perhaps have a retail unit at the Postal Museum: of course it wasn't designed with that in mind, so that would probably be difficult to achieve.   Does anybody have any other suggestions?  

UPDATE 28 November.
DF has sent me this further notice which indicates that the Philatelic services will be transferred to Broadway PO, SW1H 0AX, which is about a mile away.  

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Closure/relocation of Trafalgar Square Post Office

From a comment on another thread, but not specific to that subject:

Any one visiting Trafalgar Square post office from early September may want to be aware of its revised opening hours
 

UPDATE 26 SEPTEMBER 2018 - CLOSURE/RELOCATION ANNOUNCED.

As a consequence of the landlord’s extensive development plans and their subsequent impact on the branch, regrettably Trafalgar Square Post Office branch will close permanently at this location in December 2018. 

We are committed to re-establishing services locally and are working to find a long-term solution for the Trafalgar Square area. 

In the meantime there are several branches in the area which may provide suitable alternatives for customers.  Lower Regent Street Post Office is located just 0.5  miles from Trafalgar Square Post Office and a further four branches, New Oxford Street, Poland Street, Aldwych and Broadway Post Office are within a mile of the current branch.

 

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Post Office Philatelic Sales in London - update

Five years ago, in response to requests from visitors to London about philatelic sales from Post Offices, I posted details of Trafalgar Square and Eastcheap (City of London) POs.

Trafalgar Square has changed several times over the years and their service is not what it once was.

Now we have news that Eastcheap's best asset has gone, so I don't know how good their service will be now.  This comment was posted today on the original thread.

"I was appalled this week to confirm that the City of London Post Office in Eastcheap has got rid of its greatest asset, namely Peade whose philatelic knowledge was only surpassed by his excellent service and helpfulness. 

It was not his choice to leave and it is beyond belief that the Post Office have acted like this. They say that they are unable to comment on individual employees so let me tell them that they will rue this day. Peade built up the Philatelic Counter from an also ran to the best in Britain and I shall miss him tremendously.

John Bulger"

UPDATE 2 June 2015
I have received more information about the Eastcheap branch.  Apparently Peade retired after 40 years' service, so there was no ulterior motive from Post Office Ltd.  And the person who has taken over his position has said that "he would like to emulate his colleague's reputation", so for visitors to London, make yourselves known at Eastcheap and encourage the new man in his endeavours.

UPDATE 28 August 2017
See latest situation on Philatelic Counters, and specifically comment about Eastcheap.

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Post and Go in central London - any Wincor-Nixdorf left?

A correspondent has been looking at various blog posts about the change from Wincor-Nixdorf Post and Go machines to NCR Self Service in London, and can't find the answer to this question.

Can anybody tell me whether there are any Wincors left - starting from Islington (Stampex) and working through the central London area? 

Many thanks

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Faststamp found with inverted service details from Tudor Street.

I haven't seen one of these before - which, on reflection, is something of a surprise.

In theory it should only be possible to feed the stamps into the machine lower-edge first.  Unless the stamps were wrongly wound onto the core, or if this was a part-roll which had been re-wound and fed through in error.

Thanks to Robert for providing the picture of the stamp "received this cover this morning which was bought and posted yesterday from London" (it also shows the new ink-jet postmark from Mount Pleasant).

The stamp was bought from the kiosk at 2a Tudor Street, also known as Ludgate Circus, in London.

It's possible, of course, that the fault was a result of a software error. Who knows?

UPDATE: A collectors' set of 6 is currently on offer on eBay #251060441350

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New London Home for BPMA

News Release>
22 March 2012>

Plans for a new home for The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) were announced today by the BPMA, Royal Mail Group and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The new Postal Museum will provide access to the BPMA's unique collections of 400 years of postal, social and design history, including photographs, posters, vehicles, pillar boxes, employment records of millions of people and a world-class stamp collection.

Under a plan endorsed by the Government, the new centre will be established at Calthorpe House, on London's Mount Pleasant site, where the country's oldest mail centre is located. It is close to the existing home of the BPMA at Freeling House, which has very limited space for exhibitions and displays.

Royal Mail Group will grant a lease of 999 years for Calthorpe House, a property which will provide a secure foundation for the BPMA once redeveloped and extended. Agreements have been signed with Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd (POL) for a £6m long term, low interest loan to fund the conversion of Calthorpe House to meet the basic needs of the organisation. In addition, Royal Mail and POL are providing other support, including a £500,000 grant.

A fundraising campaign by the BPMA will be launched shortly to raise the remaining funds required to create a state of the art museum and visitor facility. The BPMA is an independent charity set up in 2004 to care for two significant collections: The Royal Mail Archive and the collections of the former National Postal Museum. It is the BPMA's mission to increase public access to these collections, making the story they tell of communication, industry and innovation accessible to everyone.

The new centre will allow the BPMA to exhibit objects from its fascinating museum collection, which is currently held in storage. It will also include educational facilities for visiting schools.

More details on the BPMA website > http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/page/calthorpehouse

This is very good news!

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