Inside a 1950s W.T. Allen EIIR Cast-Iron Post Box — and How We Restored It

What exactly is this post box?

The most obvious dating feature is the large EIIR royal cypher beneath the crown. EIIR represents Elizabeth II Regina, identifying the box as having been produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, which began in 1952.

The second major clue is cast directly into the lower edge: W.T. ALLEN & CO. LTD. LONDON.

Closely matching surviving W.T. Allen Elizabeth II wall boxes are catalogued to approximately 1955. Examples of the same general pattern are around 33 inches tall and roughly 13½ inches wide, with the substantial cast-iron body extending back into the wall.

That date is especially interesting because W.T. Allen's long period supplying cast-iron letter boxes came to an end during the 1950s. This therefore belongs to the last generation of Post Office wall boxes carrying the Allen name.

How heavy is an original cast-iron wall post box?

Heavy enough that this one immediately made an impression on us. It was not realistically a one-person lift.

We did not place this particular box on calibrated scales, so we do not want to invent an exact weight. However, a complete restored Elizabeth II wall box of very similar proportions — approximately 850mm high, 345mm wide and 380mm deep — is documented at 110kg.

It also explains why wall boxes were so secure in service. Much of the casting was recessed into masonry, leaving the elaborate front visible while the mass of the mail chamber was effectively incorporated into the building.

Wall boxes: the economical alternative to a pillar box

Britain's familiar roadside pillar boxes appeared in the early 1850s, but there was an obvious problem with providing one everywhere: a complete freestanding cast-iron pillar box was relatively expensive.

The Post Office introduced the wall box in 1857. Instead of producing a complete freestanding column, the collection chamber could be recessed into an existing wall, building or masonry structure.

This made wall boxes particularly useful in villages, rural areas and places where the volume of mail did not justify the expense or space of a full pillar box.

The principle proved extraordinarily durable. Nearly a century after the first wall boxes appeared, this Elizabeth II example was still fundamentally using the same idea — but with decades of accumulated improvements in security and collection.

W.T. Allen & Co and the Post Office

W.T. Allen became one of the names most closely associated with the British wall box after the Post Office contract for manufacturing them passed to the company in 1881.

The firm's name can still be found cast into surviving Victorian, Edwardian, George V, George VI and early Elizabeth II boxes around Britain and Ireland.

This was mass production, but not in the modern disposable sense. The objects were immensely substantial castings produced for public service, exposed permanently to weather and expected to remain secure while being opened and closed thousands of times.

From London to Bangkok

An especially interesting surviving example of Allen's international work has been photographed at the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand.

A historic lamp standard there carries a W.T. Allen & Co maker's inscription referring to the company's London premises.

The nearby Chakri Maha Prasat Hall was constructed during the late nineteenth century, between 1876 and 1882, a period when European architectural and engineering products were being incorporated into major projects throughout Asia.

It is a remarkable connection: the same company name cast into a post box sitting in our workshop in Hull can also be found on historic ironwork on the other side of the world.

Inside the box: much more engineering than you might expect

From the street, the mechanism of a wall box is almost completely hidden. Once this one was out of the wall and in the workshop, we could examine the various parts that made collection both secure and practical.

The design combines several different systems:

What is the little wheel with two holes?

This was one of the details on our box that deserved some research. Beside the keyhole is a small circular rotating plate containing two pin holes.

At first glance it is easy to assume that this is a second locking mechanism. Period Chubb Post Office keys tell us something much more interesting.

Surviving original Chubb post-box keys are documented with two small projecting pins whose purpose was to operate the dust cover fitted over the keyhole.

That very strongly identifies the two-hole wheel on this box as the original rotating keyhole shutter or dust cover.

In our photographs the circular plate can be seen moved away from the actual keyway, making the arrangement particularly easy to understand.

On a mechanism expected to spend decades outdoors, that protective shutter had an obvious practical purpose. It helped shield the keyway itself from rain, grit, dust and general contamination before the lock was operated.

Why each postman needed a bunch of keys

One popular assumption is that there must have been a single 'postman's key' capable of opening every box.

In fact, the Letter Box Study Group records that locks on pillar, wall and lamp boxes were individually keyed.

That meant a postman clearing a route could carry a substantial ring of different keys corresponding to the boxes on that round. Numbered tags attached to keys helped identify which one belonged to which box.

From a security point of view this made considerable sense. Losing a key did not automatically compromise every post box in a district.

The internal cage: stopping a full box emptying itself

A lock was only part of the problem. Imagine opening the door of a busy post box containing hundreds of letters, all of them leaning against the collection door.

Early wall boxes incorporated wirework internally. One purpose was to keep mail clear of the lowest surface of the cast-iron chamber, where condensation or small amounts of water could collect.

The wirework developed into a more substantial internal retaining cage, helping hold the contents back when the access door was opened.

Closely matching W.T. Allen Elizabeth II boxes are still found with their original internal cages intact.

Security at the posting aperture

The collection door was not the only possible route into a post box. Designers also had to consider someone trying to retrieve letters through the posting aperture itself.

British post-box design developed what collectors call an upshoot.

Instead of providing a simple straight opening from the outside into the mail chamber, the lower part of the aperture projects upwards internally. A posted letter has to travel inward and upwards before dropping over the internal edge into the body of the box.

The Letter Box Study Group records that this arrangement was adopted because it was considered more secure than earlier designs in which mail could fall almost directly through the aperture.

The NEXT COLLECTION system

Another detail that can easily be mistaken for decoration is the cast NEXT COLLECTION wording on the face of the box.

This area formed part of a simple mechanical information system. Collection tablets could be changed by postal staff to indicate the next clearance time or day.

The Letter Box Study Group records the use of these tablets as a way of showing customers when the box would next be emptied.

The various holes and fixing points visible around this area when the box was stripped are therefore evidence of original working components rather than random damage to the casting.

Why stripping mattered on this restoration

With a box this old it would have been easy to clean the exterior, sand whatever was loose and add another coat of paint.

We wanted to go further than that.

Decades of repainting gradually bury the fine detail in cast iron. Letter edges become rounded, the crown loses definition and the maker's name becomes less distinct.

More importantly, a new paint system is only as reliable as the coating underneath it.

The problem: an enamel coating that caustic wouldn't remove

Our normal chemical stripping process is extremely effective on the traditional paints encountered on doors, architectural joinery and a great deal of historic metalwork.

This post box was different.

Beneath the accumulated coating system was an exceptionally resistant enamel-type finish. The caustic process removed compatible material, but the enamel itself was largely unaffected.

This is an important part of specialist stripping work. An object that has existed for seventy years may have been painted using several completely different coating technologies. There is no guarantee that one chemistry will remove all of them.

Our restoration process

Why we didn't automatically paint it Post Office red

Historic Post Office red would have been an obvious option, but this was a privately owned box being restored for a customer rather than an in-service Royal Mail box.

The customer specified the finished colour and we applied the coating system accordingly.

The deep dark gloss with gold lettering gives the box a very different character while retaining the features that actually establish its history: the casting, crown, EIIR cypher, POST OFFICE lettering and W.T. Allen maker's mark.

Designed for daily use, not just appearance

When all of the components are considered together, this apparently simple object becomes a very clever piece of public infrastructure.

None of those systems requires electricity, electronics or complex maintenance. They use gravity, geometry, robust castings and a small number of properly engineered moving parts.

That simplicity is probably one of the reasons so many historic British letter boxes have survived for generations.

Collection and delivery for heavy architectural metalwork

This restoration also demonstrates why collection and delivery can be as important as the stripping itself.

An original cast-iron wall box of this size is not something that can realistically be carried under one arm or placed casually in the boot of a car.

Yorkshire Paint Stripping can provide collection and return delivery for suitable projects, including post boxes, gates, railings, benches, cast-iron furniture and other heavy or awkward pieces of architectural metalwork.

We work throughout Hull, Yorkshire and the surrounding regions and can travel further for suitable specialist or larger projects.

Photographs, approximate measurements and a collection postcode are normally enough for us to start assessing a job.

Why the history matters to us

At first sight this job could simply be described as stripping and repainting an old post box.

But the object itself tells a much bigger story.

Its design can be traced back through almost a century of wall-box development. Its EIIR cypher places it in the early years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Its W.T. Allen name links it to a London company which supplied Post Office boxes from the Victorian period through to the 1950s and also manufactured street-lighting equipment sold internationally.

Its Chubb lock reveals how postal security worked before electronic access control. The two-hole wheel beside the keyway turns out to be part of a mechanical weather-protection system. Inside, the retaining cage and hinged chute show how engineers solved the practical problem of emptying a box containing a large volume of mail.

That way, the finished project preserves more than the metal. It preserves some of the story behind it too.