Gold Post Box, Eccleston Post Office

Image: © David Dixon Taken: 11 Aug 2012

Royal Mail celebrated Bradley Wiggins’ Olympic gold medal win in the men’s cycling road race, by painting two post boxes gold; one opposite Chorley Town Hall on Market Street and this one, outside the post office at the Eccleston Carrington Centre. Royal Mail celebrated every gold medal won by a British athlete during the London 2012 Olympic Games by repainting one of their iconic red pillar boxes gold for each gold medal winning Olympian and Paralympian. In total, Team GB won 29 Gold Medals for the Olympic Games and 34 Gold Medals for the Paralympic Games; for team medals, a post box was painted gold for all team members (see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Olympic-Gold-Post-Boxes for list and more examples). This was the first occasion in modern times that Royal Mail had changed the colour of their post boxes from the traditional red which has been the standard colour for UK boxes from 1874, with very few exceptions. The original plan was for the boxes to be returned to their traditional red colour but in November, it was announced that they would remain gold and that a plaque would be fixed to each one (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20183986 BBC News). https://web.archive.org/web/20171231162534/https://www.goldpostboxes.com/ - archived 31st December 2017 (Royal Mail Gold Postbox Finder) To celebrate Wiggins’ win, the Post Office also issued a commemorative stamp featuring an image of him winning the men’s cycling road race final. A large cardboard replica of that stamp is in the post office window, next to the post box.

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