Oxford post boxes: Victorian wall boxes
Wall boxes for letters were first tried out in England in 1857, but the early ones suffered from rust. There are eight surviving Victorian wall postboxes in Oxford, all with a very plain VR cypher at the top (compare the curly one on the surviving Oxford pillar boxes).
The Holywell/Longwall Street wall box
A wall box was installed in January 1878 on the wall to the east of 100 Holywell Street, which was the location of the Printing Office of Jackson's Oxford Journal until 1894. On 26 January 1878 that newspaper reported:
NEW POST OFFICE LETTER BOX.—The Post office authorities have this week placed a letter box in the wall of the house, No. 100, Holywell-street, which is situate at the junction of that street with Long Wall-street, and the road leading to the Church. The new box will be a great convenience in the locality, and the hours of clearing are 9.30 a.m., 2.20, 5.30, 7.15, and 9.0 p.m. on week days, and 2 p.m. on Sundays.
Kelly's Directory for 1889 and 1899 duly list this wall box. The wall adjoining the east side of 100 Holywell Street was, however, taken down in 1909–10 when the Morris Garage was built, and a Victorian wall box was reinstated in this garage wall, which meant that the address of the garage (and therefore of the letter box) became Longwall Street rather than Holywell Street. As the present box was made by W. T. Allen & Co., it seems likely that it is a recycled Victorian box from elsewhere.
Seven of the wall boxes shown below were within the much smaller City of Oxford and are hence listed in Kelly's Directory for 1899, when they were each emptied eleven times a day Mon–Sat with the last collection at 10pm, but only twice on Sunday. The other two – at Merton Street West and on Banbury Road near Cunliffe Close – are not listed and so are likely to have have been erected in 1899–1901.
The last wall box below is the only village post box that survives within the expanded city of Oxford. It is on the corner of the shop that faces both Crescent Road and Temple Road). It is listed in Kelly's Directory for 1899 under Cowley Village, and it was then emptied at 10.55am, 5pm, and 8.30pm.
All the wall boxes shown below are inscribed “W.T. ALLEN & CO. LONDON” (a firm that made post boxes from 1881) along the lower edge. They have a small aperture (eight inches rather than the ten inches of more modern ones). The first two lack a handle in the lower left-hand corner.
St Margaret’s Road*
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Merton Street west
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Holywell Street/Longwall Street*
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Merton Street east
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South Parks Road*
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Chalfont Road
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Banbury Road
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Crescent Road/Temple Road
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* Listed in Kelly's Directory in 1889 |
Victorian wall letter boxes in Oxford that have been removed or relocated
Victorian letter boxes only survived as long as the wall in which they were set remained in place. Many were lost in Oxford because of rebuilding work, and they were often replaced by more modern boxes.
Turl Street: Victorian wall box of 1886 replaced by George VI box in 1939
The present wall letter box in the wall of Lincoln College on the east side of Turl Street dates from the reign of George VI, but there was an earlier Victorian wall letter box on the other side of the street. Jackson's Oxford Journal on 24 April 1886 reported on the installation of this earlier letter box:
NEW POST OFFICE LETTER BOX.—Workmen have been engaged during the present week in fixing a Post Office letter box in the stone wall at the corner of Market-Street and Turl-street, facing Lincoln College.
The Victorian box must have been lost when the site on which it stood was cleared to make way for Lincoln House in 1939. The photograph below shows it in the old wall at the front right:
