Chiswick Awarded Olympic Golden Post Box

Situated in front of Town Hall in honour of locally based rower Pete Reed

Following Saturday's win by Team GB in the Men's Four final at Eton Dorney, Chiswick has had one of its post boxes painted gold.

This is in honour of one of the victorious crew, Pete Reed, who lives and trains in the area. His team mates Alex Gregory, Tom James and Andrew Triggs Hodge’s gold medal win will also be marked in their home towns. The post box is just next to Chiswick Town Hall on Heathfield Terrace.

Post box after painting. Pic: Mike F Abbott

Chiswick's Golden Post Box being painted

The Royal Mail have also issued a stamp featuring in the crew which they say will be on sale from Sunday (August 5th).

The UK is believed to be the first country to paint post boxes gold to celebrate Olympic and Paralympic gold medal wins. This will also be the first occasion in modern times when Royal Mail has changed the colour of its post boxes. Red has been the standard colour for UK boxes from 1874, with few exceptions

A dedicated team has been on standby to transform the specially selected post boxes within days of a win.

The gold boxes will remain in use and customers will be able to post mail in these boxes as normal. Mail collections from the boxes will also be unaffected. The boxes will be repainted in Royal Mail's traditional red in due course.

Royal Mail demonstrated how the boxes will change from red to gold by painting a box in near to Westminster Abbey, London.

Post boxes will not be the only things turning gold this summer. Royal Mail will issue special stamps to celebrate each Team GB gold medal win at the London 2012 Games. Team GB Gold Medal stamps will be produced capturing an action image of each Team GB member or team that wins gold this summer.

Royal Mail will also be the first postal administration to commemorate the gold medal wins of the national Paralympic team by featuring them on a set of six special stamps. Each stamp will feature a different group of ParalympicsGB gold medal winners. These stamps will be available for sale in over 5.200 Post Office branches from 27 September 2012.

August 7, 2012