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Now you all know that I'm quite partial to a postbox.📮Well today, I visited the Colne Valley Postal Museum in Halstead. This is a private collection but opens twice a year under the Heritage Open Days scheme and today's the day. I have been hearing good reports about the place because of my membership of the Letter Box Study Group (I know, I know!) but I wasn't prepared for the numbers involved in the collection.🤔
There are over 100 boxes dating back to the 1860s, telephone boxes, postal artefacts, even a number of telegraph insulators. There were over 50 AA direction signs and even some bus and railway stuff.
The curator asked me what I thought of the collection and I could only answer "fantastic." I mentioned my membership of the LBSG and he asked how I'd got into post boxes. I said that I was a geocacher and I had become aware of the difference in the boxes when I was out and about, so I had joined.😇
He said that he knew about geocaching and suggested that I place a geocache in his front garden. Now how many times have you had an offer like that? The conversation then developed into me holding an event in his front garden and the museum being opened for the attendees afterward! After putting a date in his diary, I departed to look for a few caches.😉
I quickly found The Outer Limits, a trad up the road from the museum, placed on a lamp box! The Stumped trad was a bit tricky, hidden in ivy! The last one that I was going for was Welcome To The Jungle, another trad, which was hidden on the edge of Coggeshall Pieces, a local nature reserve. This was a quick find which was just as well as it started to rain! That was my cue to go home.