Post boxes: Victorian
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Oxford has fourteen surviving Victorian post boxes. The oldest is the pillar box in Park Town, which dates from between 1866 and 1868. All are embossed with the entwined letters "VR" except for the two so-called "anonymous" boxes. |
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Webster's Oxford Directory for 1869 is the first directory that lists Oxford postboxes. There were then four Receiving Offices (R.O.) and only eight postboxes:
Time of collection from Receiving Offices,
and Pillar and Wall Letter Boxes
Magdalen Street; and Littlegate Street—10.00am 2.40pm 6.00pm 7.35pm 9.30pm 10.00am 2.20pm 7.35pm 9.30pm 9.30am 2.20pm 5.30pm 7.15pm 9.00pm 9.30am 2.00pm 7.15pm 9.00pm Town letters can be posted at the Chief Office at the
Town Hall, until 6.30am, 12noon, and 5.30pm
The first Kelly's Directory for Oxford was published in 1889–90, and lists 23 letter boxes in the city, all of which were emptied about a dozen times a day between 4.30am and 10.00pm. (The city at that date did not include Headington or Cowley, which would probably have only had receiving offices then). Here is a list of the 1889 Oxford postboxes (the five marked with * still exist):
- Banbury Road*
- Broad Street
- Bullingdon Road
- Fyfield Road
- Holywell Street*
- Iffley Road
- King Edward Street
- Kingston Road
- Littlegate Street
- Magdalen Road
- Magdalen Street
- Norham Gardens
- Osney
- Paradise Street
- Parks Crescent*
- St Aldate's Street
- St Margaret's Road*
- South Parks Road*
- St Clement's (at the Plain)
- Turl Street
- Woodstock Road
- Worcester Street
- GWR station