A few Coaching Items

A few coaching items starting with an entire dated inside 23rd June 1785 from Bristol to Maidenhead.  Maidenhead would be on the Bristol - London route of the London Mail Coach inaugurated the pervious year by John Palmer on 2nd August 1784, so it is likely that this entire travelled on it.  The contents are a long letter from a daughter to her mother "I have the pleasure to assure my tenderly anxious Mother that her solicitude on account of my illness may now subside", and goes on to write about having to hire two horses (one for a groom to ensure that the horses get returned to the hiring stable).

The Flyer/Receipt below is dated 3rd August 1841 to Brighton - a place which was very well served by Coaches from London in competition with each other.

The Flyer below was described as '1801' when purchased and is for "The Somerset, a new light coach with a guard" from London to Taunton and return.  The journey is planned to take nearly 12 hours which would be an average of about 6½ mph including stops.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to you.

The entire below was sent from Bristol to London arriving on Christmas Day, receiving a nice "B / RIS / TOL" handstamp and a London bishop mark of 25th December.  There is a manuscript date inside of 23rd December 1758.  The letter talks about dispatching some Deeds by Jamso's Bristol Stage Waggons directed to be left at the Rolls Coffee House.

During the Christmas rush any canceller would do, as shown by the Bristol roller cancel below on this undated postcard.

It was also normal to send postcards as Greetings Cards as in the hand painted example below from 23rd December 1909.

At Christmas time other organisations provided special Christmas delivery services, as shown in this booklet of 12 labels from Bath Postal Museum (now sadly closed) in 1982.

The Scouts also provided a delivery service as shown by these envelopes from 1985-1987 from the Third Thornbury Scout Group.

Taunton Postage Due

Some postage due items from Taunton starting with a postcard that was underfranked in 1950.  The Postcard Rate was 2d not 1d.

The envelope below was not delivered so the sender was charged 1d for return to sender in 1957.  The cachet was applied in Ilminster.

The envelope below was unfranked and received a green Posted Unpaid cachet in Manchester in 1959, with the postage dues being cancelled in Taunton with oval Registered cancels.

The unfranked postcard (a registration for guarantee for a "Tidyspin Deluxe") was refused in Birmingham in March 1971 so the sender had to pay.

The windowed envelope below had an incomplete meter mark in November 1975 so was liable to postage due.  The green cachet applied was an old one, still referring to old pence ("D").

The postage stamp on the envelope below had been fixed with adhesive tape in April 1978, and was marked as "Stamp Defaced".

And finally an example of the post office being over keen in 1987 and charging postage due on an unfranked envelope that was addressed to a Freepost address - the postage due stamps were "Cancelled".

Some modern TPOs

I don't collect TPOs - Travelling Post Offices - but here are a few that I've found, all philatelic, starting with an envelope posted on a TPO in 1965 without paying the 1d late fee.

The next cover is from 1987 and went on the Great Western Down Bag Tender, with the cancel applied by arrangement.

The final covers all relate to the last Penzance-Bristol and Bristol-Penzance TPO in January 2004.

Some Skeletons - Holford, Midford, Marston Magna, Stoke under Ham, Templecombe SO, West Harptree and Williton

A random accumulation of Skeletons, starting with a Climax rubber skeleton for Holford used on 29th May 1914.

The skeleton below from Midford used on 14th March 1906 was also a Climax rubber cancel.

The skeleton below from Marston Magna is only known used on 2nd October 1942.

... and the Stoke under Ham skeleton was also only known used on 16th February 1904.

This Templecombe S.O. skeleton was in use for about a month, from 2nd April to 3rd May 1912.

West Harptree's skeleton was in use for a month and a half from 19th July to 3rd September 1974.  As in the example below the "P" often does not print.

And finally a Williton skeleton that was in use for about a month, from 12th December 1909 to 10th January 1910.

Random Offices under Bristol

A random selection of postmarks for Offices under Bristol starting with a registered envelope sent from Merrywood, Bristol in 1892.

 Here is a Certificate of Posting postmarked at St Michaels in 1899.

Next is a postcard from Filton with a double circle double-arc postmark in 1952.

This Parcel Post Label is from Redland in 1903 with a "REDLAND / BRISTOL" single ring handstamp as well as "BRISTOL" roller cancels.

The registered envelope below was posted from Whiteladies Road to Clevedon in 1913.

And finally a more modern form from Wine Street, not actually postally used but with the "CITY B.O. / WINE STREET / BRISTOL / BS1 1DD" cachet.  The form was used to provide the Post Office with details of franking machine usage.

Bristol Returned Letter Branch

Bristol Returned Letter Branch handled letters that need returning to the sender in the south-west.  The covers below are from 1887 and 1901, with "R.L.B. / BRISTOL" single ring handstamps.

The letter being returned below in 1897 was compulsorily Registered as it conatained value and the recipient would have had to pay 2d.  It has an oval "REGISTERED / BRISTOL R.L.B" handstamp.

The envelope below from the USA to Plymouth in 1932 was not collected from Plymouth post office so needed returning to the sender, and was routed via the Bristol Returned Letter Branch.

Locking Camp

RAF Locking was opened in January 1939 just before the start of WW2 as a training camp providing training in aircraft trades including flight mechanics, airframes, engines, parachute training and air gunnery. There were satellite camps near Banwell at Knightcott, on Summer Lane and at Hill End. During the war RAF Locking became a huge hutted encampment where it was not unusual to have 6,000 personnel on parade at the same time. Four years after opening the school had trained 30,682 tradesmen for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. 

In 1950 the ‘No. 1 Radio School’ moved to Locking to provide training for radio and radar technicians, and as radar became an important part of the RAF the site became a specialist school for electronics. The Radio School moved to RAF Cosford in 1998, and RAF Locking closed on 31st March 1999 sixty years after it had opened. The RAF finally left the site in 2000.

See http://www.lockingheritage.org/raflocking.html for more details.

The following sheets illustrate Locking Camp cancellations, from 1958 to 1986.