Edward VIII "Ludlow" postbox, Front Street

The saved picture record identifies Edward VIII "Ludlow" postbox, Front Street as Old post box. British post boxes normally carry the royal mark of the monarch reigning when they were installed, so the Edward VIII mark dates this example to the brief 1936 reign rather than merely decorating it with a later royal name.

The box belonged to the national postal system run at the time by the General Post Office. Local people used boxes of this kind to place paid letters into the public mail. The picture record does not safely name the foundry, exact installation day or every later repair for this individual box.

Edward VIII reigned for less than one year in 1936 and abdicated before a coronation. The Postal Museum calls his post-box mark very rare for that reason. A Royal Mail and Historic England report said that the Letter Box Study Group had identified 171 surviving Edward VIII boxes when the report was prepared, far fewer than boxes marked for longer reigns.

The reusable picture and its mapped point record this box or a close view of its royal mark. The saved wording is: Edward VIII "Ludlow" postbox, Front Street is shown and named in a reusable Geograph picture. The saved point is the picture's recorded map point. Several nearby records can be different photographs of the same physical box, so the number of picture records must not be mistaken for a count of different surviving boxes.

This small working object fixes a national crisis to an ordinary street. The royal mark turns the box into physical evidence of the months between Edward VIII becoming king and giving up the throne, while its postal use also records how everyday communication worked before private telephones and digital messages became common.