Tag Archives: postman’s Park

Once everyday objects, now souvenirs of times long past

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CLOSE TO POSTMANS PARK in the City of London, there are two restored items on the pavement of the street called St Martin’s Le Grand. One of these would have been commonly seen all over the City a few decades ago. The other is rarer.

One of the objects is a restored Police Call Post. Free to use, these slender items topped with a red, light signal could be used by members of the public to call a police station. If a police station wanted to call the policeman on the beat, the red light would flash to attract his (or her) attention. Fortunately, I never had cause to use this service. Designed and made in the early 1930’s by British Ericsson, these telephone posts were decommissioned in the 1960s because of the availability of mobile police radio transmitters and receivers. Most of these posts were sold during the 1980s, but eight remain in the City. These have been carefully restored by Rupert Harris Conservation Ltd, and are now protected heritage items. According to the company’s website (https://rupertharris.com/products/police-call-posts-1):

“A few examples of similar posts exist in Westminster and throughout the country, but those differ slightly in design and colour. The Westminster models bear a Royal crest above the front ‘POLICE POST’ panel, and are painted dark blue.”

Ony a  couple of days ago, I noticed one of the Westminster models at Piccadilly Circus outside of what was once the magnificent Tower Records shop.

Standing close to the Police Call Post near Postman’s Park, there is a Victorian post box (pillar box). Painted black rather than the usual red, it resembles other Victorian post boxes I have seen in London (e.g., on Ladbroke Grove) and in Fort Kochi (India). A plaque on the black post box (near the defunct Police Call Post) states that this kind of pillar box was designed by John Penfold in 1866, and that this particular example commemorated 500 years since Brian Tuke (1472-1545), the first Master of the Post, was knighted by Henry VIII in 1516. It stands outside the building that was the GPO’s headquarters from 1894-1984. Unlike its neighbour the Police Call Post, this venerable letter box is still in use. Within a short distance from the much-visited St Pauls Cathedral, these less well-known sights and the nearby Postmans Park (see: https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2023/05/21/self-sacrifice-remembered/) are well worth investigating

Art of heros

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GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS (1807-1904) was a prolific, highly acclaimed Victorian artist. Visitors to London’s Kensington Gardens can easily admire one of his works, a sculpture called “Physical Energy”. Standing across the Serpentine from a sculpture by Henry Moore, Watts’s sculpture is a bronze casting of a version of it that was sent to South Africa as part of a memorial to Cecil Rhodes. One of Watts’s less prominent works, and quite a curious one, can be seen in Postman’s Park, which is a few yards north of St Pauls Cathedral in the City of London. It is the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice.

The memorial consists of a wall covered with rectangular plaques, made with ceramic tiles commemorating heroic deeds carried out by ordinary people. For example, one bears the words:
“Frederick Alfred Croft. Inspector aged 31. Saved a lunatic woman from suicide at Woolwich Arsenal Station but was himself run over by a train. Jan 11, 1878”.
And many other examples of great bravery by civilians are recorded on the wall, which is protected by a canopy with a decorative fringe.

By Susan Hiller

The artist Susan Hiller (1940-2019) was born in Florida (USA) and died in London. Apparently, she was surprised by how few people noticed the memorial in Postman’s Park, let alone read the tragic plaques. I am one of the few, who have done so. So, as soon as I got near to an artwork displayed in a temporary exhibition in the Tate Britain art gallery, I knew it was based on the plaques in Postman’s Park. The piece consists of 41 photographs of plaques on the Memorial, which have been arranged on a wall by Susan Hiller. In the centre of this artistic array that she has called “Monument 1980-1”, she has placed a plaque which consists of a stretch of tiling on which the words “Strive to be your own hero” have been crudely written with black paint.

Susan Hiller’s interesting version of GF Watts’s Memorial is one of several intriguing exhibits in an exhibition called “Material as Message”, which was still being installed when we visited it in March 2023. There is yet one more exhibit to be unveiled. Hiller’s exhibit interested me because I am familiar with Postman’s Park, but the other exhibits were equally fascinating both visually and conceptually.