Dedicated Places
Postal Museum, London WC1
The new Postal Museum really delivers, says Huon Mallalieu
An occasional series on small local museums dedicated to one artist, group or subject. By Huon Mallalieu
Mount Pleasant was a typically ironic name for a rubbish-filled lane running down to the River Fleet and the area north of Clerkenwell. the latter was home to the Cold Baths, for rheumatics, and then the Middlesex House of Correction, which held 1,800 inmates before the GPO adapted its redundant treadmill houses for use as a parcel depot in 1889. In time, Mount Pleasant became the largest sorting office in europe; now London’s newest museum has opened on parts of the site.
It will be, in fact, two attractions in one: the Postal Museum on one side of Phoenix street and, on the other, Mail Rail, a revived section of the driverless underground line that, from 1927 to 2003, carried mail between Paddington and Whitechapel.
even really young children are catered for—although the claim of ‘0 to 8’ may be a slight exaggeration—with an area of miniature post vans, offices and slides, trolleys, pulleys and chutes. there are plenty of inventive interactive displays and toys for older visitors, too, including a little cinema for showings of the GPO film unit’s Night Mail and other productions.
the museum is arranged in five zones, ‘leading visitors through five centuries of world-class curiosities’ and throwing new light on historical events, as the director adrian steel puts it. there is a beautifully restored London-Bristol Mail Coach, a handsome 1941 Bsa motorbike in Post office livery and a 1980s Dodge spacevan postbus. the strangest vehicle is a Victorian five-wheel cycle with baskets fore and aft (these did not catch on as the saddles wore through uniform trousers at too great a rate).
there is an example of the first post boxes, invented by anthony trollope and tried out on Jersey, a Gilbert scott phone box and a gold-painted Golden Jubilee pillar box. one of the very few sheets of Penny Black stamps is on show.
Rail Mail is not for the claustrophobic. the 20-minute ride runs in a 1km (just over half a mile) loop, with a stop at one of the seven old stations for what should be an impressive audio-visual display—it was not yet working when I made my trip. along the way are a train graveyard, where old rolling stock is mothballed, and places lined with sandbags in case of irruptions by the nearby Fleet.
Back in the cavernous former engineering depot are more displays, such as a replica of a travelling Post office, with suitably shaking floor, where visitors can try to sort the mail as if they were on a mail train rushing through the night.
The Postal Museum and Mail Rail, Phoenix Place, Clerkenwell, London WC1X 0DA (www. postalmuseum.org)