Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

Registered UK Charity (No. 115342)

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 162,258 pages of information and 244,500 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Cochrane and Co: Pillar Boxes

From Graces Guide
Pillar Box. Exhibit at the Black Country Living Museum.
Pillar box and lamp post combined at Toad Lane, Rochdale.
Pillar box and lamp post combined (detail) at Toad Lane, Rochdale.
1862 Cochrane and Co (Woodside Works, Dudley) pillar box at Bristol's 'M Shed'
1863. Pillar Box. Exhibit at Glasgow Museum of Transport.
1863. Pillar Box. (Detail)Exhibit at Glasgow Museum of Transport.
VR Pillerbox. Exhibit at the Black Country Living Museum.

1866 John Worham Penfold, an architect and surveyor, designed the first standardised pillar box. It had a distinctive hexagonal structure, topped by acanthus leaves and with a string of balls around the rim. Several different versions were introduced in response to feedback, including complaints that letters were stuck in the top, and postmen reported letters stuck in the inner wire basket. The boxes were made of cast iron by Cochrane and Co at the Woodside Works. The Penfold box has been listed Grade II by English Heritage. Eight examples are still to be found in the streets of Cheltenham alone[1]


See Also

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Sources of Information

  1. Gloucester Echo, 23 July 2016