THERE’S a piece of history on every street corner.

I have walked past them without paying much attention for years. Until the other day.

Those red post boxes we slip our mail into - have you ever paused to take a look at one properly? You might think they’re all alike. But you’d be wrong.

The one I inspected had the initials GR on the front. The GR stands for George Rex. This postbox - you can see it in Stockton Heath on the pavement next to Johnsons hairdressers - dates back to George V’s reign.

If there is VI next to the GR it means the box was put up during the reign of George VI.

It’s more common to see ones with ER on the front, commemorating the reign of our current monarch.

Intrigued by this, I started delving into the history of post boxes. And a rich source of fascinating information I came across. As with most things, the humble letter box did not come into the world fully formed. Over the decades they have evolved in size, colour and dimensions.

I assumed they’d always been red. Originally, the Post Office painted rural ones green to blend into the countryside. Later, with the notion of standardisation in mind, other colours were considered and chocolate brown was a front-runner for a while, before the red we know and love was adopted.

Before their introduction, there were two ways for your letter to reach your intended recipient. You either took the letter yourself to a Receiving House (an early Post Office) or you waited to hand it to the uniformed Bellman who collected letters on daily rounds, ringing a bell as he went.

In 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced, making communication by letter affordable to everyone. In the 1850s, famed novelist and Post Office employee Anthony Trollope was inspired by roadside letter boxes in Europe to propose a similar scheme in Britain.

Over the years the letter box underwent a seemingly endless parade of changes, adjustments and tweaks. These included experiments with vertical and horizontal slits, and flaps and lips designed to keep letters dry in inclement weather.

In rural areas, boxes were inserted into walls, while in the early part of the 20th century, air mail boxes were painted blue. Lamp boxes were and still continue to be popular in rural areas. A nice touch were the golden pillar boxes to honour the gold medal winners at the London Olympics in 2012.

I do wonder, though, for how long pillar boxes will be on our street corners, with the decline in letter-writing thanks to e-mail and the internet.

It would be sad to see them go the same way as the public phone box.