You may not be aware of them, but items of huge cultural and historical significance could fall under your gaze every day.
Some offer evidence of era-defining events that in days gone by helped to shape the country and change lives.
Several such items exist in Perthshire, where post box enthusiast David Chandler struck gold with two hugely rare examples.
The amateur historian is part of a nationwide project to visit, photograph and catalogue all of the UK’s 114,500 or so post boxes.
One of his most successful trips – captured on video – saw him make a 300-mile round visit to Perthshire where he discovered some of the rarest in the UK, including one that may be unique.
With more and more sub post offices disappearing, seeing rare boxes in their original situation is becoming a race against time.
So David was delighted to find one of just a handful of Edward VIII post boxes left in the UK within the village of Forgandenny in Perthshire, where it has been used by locals for 80 years.
Made by James Ludlow of Birmingham, the boxes are rare because of their style, but also because of the short-lived reign of the monarch, who later abdicated.
They were designed specifically for sub post offices, private residences and hotels and were a cheap alternative to a full post box for cash-strapped sub postmasters, who had to purchase their own boxes.
Each was constructed mainly of wood with a cast iron or steel front and an enamel face-plate place that bore the cypher of the monarch of the time.
After his visit to Forgandenny and a chat with sub-postmaster Jim Johnston, David jumped on a bus to Perth where he understood a second Ludlow box was waiting.
He found it on the wall of a house on the city’s Dundee Road – once a sub post office – but discovered it was in fact something even more unusual.
It emerged the Ludlow box had probably been destined to become an Edward VIII example but had quickly been converted after his abdication to instead commemorate George VI.
The two successes made the trip north hugely worthwhile and – combined with pictures of some of the city’s other more regular boxes – will boost an effort to visit and record every post box in the UK.
He was particularly pleased as a recent attempt to view a box at Armathwaite in Cumbria led to the discovery that it was gone.
David, from Morecambe, said: “I’m interested in things that people walk past every day ignore but which have a story tell, whether that is post boxes or manhole covers.
“I sort of became obsessed with post boxes after writing an article for the local paper that had me researching them.
“It’s a bit daft I know, but there are worse things to be doing!
“When it comes to post boxes there is a whole lot of history to gained from studying them, whether models, makers or designs or special editions such as the boxes painted gold in Dunblane to celebrate the achievements of Andy Murray.
“It’s that history I find interesting.”
David added: “The Edward VIII boxes are very rare as the monarch only sat on the throne for 10 months.
“As time has passed, thousands of sub post offices have disappeared and along with them the boxes that the public once used.
“There are now only 16 Edward VIII Ludlow boxes in existence in the UK and only six of those are still in place. The rest are in museums and private collections.”
