Some postal icons are obvious: the red pillar box, the Penny Black stamp, or the Machin head of the Queen. But Royal Mail has been delivering letters for four centuries, so there are lots of postal icons to choose from. What things spring to mind when you think of the post? How about:

• The Valentine’s card. The BPMA has rare examples of handmade 18th century cards, including one in the form of a rebus (puzzle) card from 1790. There are also 19th and 20th century mass-produced Valentine’s cards. Until 1878, more cards were sent in the post for Valentine’s Day than for Christmas (the BPMA also have one of the earliest commercial Christmas cards, from 1843!).
  
  
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  1930s postal workers sorting mail on the Travelling Post Office railway carriage
  ©Copyright Royal Mail Group 2006. Image reproduced by kind permission of The British Postal Museum & Archive
  “This is the Night Mail crossing the border/ Bringing the cheque and the postal order". The opening lines of this WH Auden poem were set to Benjamin Britten’s stirring score for the classic documentary Night Mail, in 1936. In the Royal Mail Archive you can watch the film, and others from the GPO Film Unit, or browse through hundreds of publicity photographs and posters from the 1930s to the present day.
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• Universal postage. Rowland Hill brought in major reforms to the postal service in 1840, including the introduction of the world’s first pre-paid postage stamp, the Penny Black. But the Penny Black was only a symbol of a more important change: universal penny postage. This was the idea that you could send a letter any distance for a flat fee of just a penny. The post suddenly became more affordable than ever before, benefiting businesses, helping to increase literacy, and "shrinking" the world.

This reform allowed the postal service to become a part of everyday life for millions of people – the system for connecting the nation, and the nation with the world.

But most of us, when we think of the post, probably think of the postman on his traditional bicycle. The BPMA has the bikes, the uniforms, and the mail pouches, even the bike lights. There are 32 different cycles in the BPMA collection – four of which have more than two wheels, including a Victorian parcel tricycle and the replica 1882 "Hen and Chicks" Pentacycle (a relation of the penny farthing, with four small wheels stabilising a big centre wheel). Post Office bicycles were first standardised in 1929 and the design barely changed for 60 years!

About the BPMA

The British Postal Musuem & Archive (BPMA) cares for the nation’s postal heritage. You can use The Royal Mail Archive in central London for free research, or visit the Museum store in Debden, Essex, on special open days.

The BPMA was established in 2004 as an independent charitable trust, although it is funded by Royal Mail Group plc. The BPMA manages The Royal Mail Archive, which is open to the public five days a week and on selected Saturdays. The BPMA is committed to increasing access to its collections; especially the objects in its Museum Store. But the beauty of postal heritage is that it is not just in a museum – it is on every single street.

For more details visit Places to Go under the What Next? section.