Sarah Storey's Gold Postbox, Macclesfield

Image: © David Dixon Taken: 3 Oct 2012

Royal Mail celebrated every gold medal won by a British athlete during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games by repainting one of their iconic red pillar boxes gold for each gold medal winning Olympian or Paralympian. Sarah Storey won four gold medals, so four postboxes were painted gold in her honour. This one celebrates Sarah’s gold medal winning performance for the track cycling Women's Individual C4-5 Road Race. It is in Macclesfield Market Place. 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)

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