The People’s Post

Explore a lesser-known London district and learn about posting a letter from earliest times to the coming of the GPO, visit the brand new Postal Museum and take a ride on the Mail Rail beneath the streets of London.

An expert Blue Badge guide will point out visible reminders of our postal history, from the inns where the mail coaches called with their scarlet-clad, blunderbuss-wielding guards to the coffee houses that were part of the Penny Post network. The guide will refer to eyewitness accounts from such as Felix Mendelssohn and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and recount tales of drunken poaching mailmen, corrupt politicians, the ‘Victorian internet’ and a canny public utterly determined to avoid paying for their post.

We’ll follow the visual clues of old parish markings, street signs, property marks and shop signs to deliver our Penny Post letters from the time before house numbers or postcodes. We’ll look at how the GPO added to the landscape of street furniture.

We’ll break for lunch in Exmouth Market, where there’s a thriving food market (and a secret park full of benches) alongside traditional pubs and cafés.

In the afternoon we’ll visit the new state-of-the-art Postal Museum to enjoy an incredible collection spanning five centuries and covering everything from groundbreaking design and quirky technology to the intimacy of personal letters. We’ll also ride the hidden tunnels of the Mail Rail – a unique piece of industrial heritage that kept the capital’s communication network flowing for more than 75 years.

There will be time to buy refreshments before heading home.

Cost: £41