VR to ER Traditional Cache
Hanoosh: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it.
Regards
Brenda
Hanoosh - Volunteer UK Reviewer www.geocaching.com
Geocaching Guidelines
Geocaching Help Center
UK Geocaching Information
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is located near the site of the Queen's Head public house, which has now been delicensed and converted to a residential property. Beside the cache you will see an 'E II R' post box. However just across the road is the original wall mounted 'VR' postbox, which it replaced.
To claim this cache you should take a photo of you or your GPS with the VR postbox as well as signing the log. Please take care when crossing the road.
Before the introduction of pillar boxes, on the UK mainland, it was customary to take outgoing mail to the nearest letter receiving house or post office. Such houses were usually coaching inns or turnpike houses where the Royal Mail coach would stop to pick up and set down mails and passengers. People took their letters, in person, to the receiver, or postmaster, purchased a stamp (after 1840) and handed over the letter.
The very first post boxes erected on the mainland are not recorded, but the designs varied from area to area as each District Surveyor issued their own specifications and tendered to their own chosen foundries. The earliest ones were essentially experimental, including octagonal pillars or fluted columns, vertical slits instead of horizontal ones, and other unusual features.
Standardisation of sorts came in 1857 with the deliberations of the Committee for Science & Art of the House of Lords. The Committee designed a very ornate box festooned with Grecian style-decoration but, in a major oversight, devoid of any posting aperture, which meant they were hewn out of the cast iron locally, destroying the aesthetic of the box.
The first real standard design came in 1859 with the First National Standard box. These were also cast in two sizes for the first time to allow for heavier usage in big metropolitan areas. The most famous of the early designs is that named after the architect who designed it, J W Penfold and were distinguished by their hexagonal construction.
A return to cylindrical boxes followed with the so-called Anonymous boxes of 1879. The foundry omitted the Royal Cipher and the words "Post Office" leading to the Anonymous soubriquet. It took 13 years before this error was corrected, even though the box had undergone a major design change during that time.
New post box designs were ordered in 1887 for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. All pillar and lamp boxes now had the distinctive imperial cipher of Victoria Regina, whilst the wall-mounted boxes showed only a block cipher VR. The new pillar box design saw out the reign and remained little changed until 1905, when the basic design was refined.
Traditionally British post boxes carry the Latin initials of the reigning monarch at the time of their installation: in this case VR for Victoria Regina and E II R for Elizabeth II Regina. This is now only applicable in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as there were protests in Scotland that these bore the cypher "E II R" but Queen Elizabeth is the first Queen of Scotland and of the United Kingdom to bear that name, Elizabeth I having been Queen of England only.
According to the Letter Box Study Group, there are more than 150 recognised designs and varieties of pillar boxes and wall boxes, not all of which have known surviving examples. Royal Mail estimates there are over 100,000 post boxes in the United Kingdom.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
zntargvp - natyr veba
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures