EHL174. VR (Queen Victoria) Type 'A' c1887-1892. Sovereign House, 25-28 Grand Parade (Corner of Grand Parade and Trinity Place), Eastbourne. what3words location: thank.afford.either

Cast iron letter box with VR cypher. 

Manufactured by A. Handyside & Co Ltd, Derby & London.

The Letter Box Study Group: Type A without weather strip is designated PB14/i.

Condition: Very good, especially considering it is right next to the seafront with its salt laden air. 

Eastbourne’s Historic Street Furniture (1984) gave the location as ‘Grand Parade, near Victoria Hotel.’  The Victoria Court Hotel is now Sovereign House. 

See Grenville Godfrey’s flickr account for pictures of the hotel through the decades.  Two illustrations, from approximately 1890-1900 (hotel was then named Sydney House), and the other from c1920 (then named the Embassy Hotel) show the Pillar Box on the corner.

Historic England: -

The roadside post box was introduced in Britain following the 1840 postal reform which provided for universal affordable postage. New adhesive stamps made pre-payment of postage easy. However, letters usually had to be taken to the nearest letter receiving office which could be miles away. This, together with the growth in demand for postal services linked to industrialisation and urbanisation, led to the need for many more convenient places where stamped letters could be deposited. The novelist Anthony Trollope, a General Post Office (GPO) official sent to Jersey to make recommendations, provided a solution. He adopted a system used on the Continent of placing locked cast-iron pillar boxes at the roadside and the provision of regular collection times. His scheme began in the Channel Islands in 1852 and was extended to the mainland in 1853.