Postal Museum, London
Oliver Green looks through the letterbox of a bygone era and takes a ride on the much-anticipated Mail Rail
The new Postal Museum in London has taken the idea of an immersive experience way beyond its usual meaning in the museum world. Its innovative feature is Mail Rail, the tiny underground Post Office railway that once carried mail from sorting offices to mainline stations.
Mail Rail was closed in 2003 and in its long working life since 1927, it was always a hidden operation, unseen by the public but at the heart of the nation’s postal services. Now, you can enter the cavernous underground environment of the former engineering depot at Mount Pleasant in Clerkenwell, central London, and ride in a newly built human-sized (just) train through part of this miniature train network, inches away from the stalactites and tunnel rings above your head.
During the ride, a former engineer explains how the line worked and points out the graveyard where old trains lie entombed forever. When you stop at the deserted station platforms on your circuit, an impressive projected audiovisual display recreates the history of the railway and its role in moving mail at critical times, such as the second world war. The growing public fascination with what goes on unseen beneath the city will make this is an irresistible draw as a heritage attraction.
Going on a journey
The Mail Rail experience is a brilliant marketing hook for the Postal Museum, which has reopened just over the road in the appropriately named Phoenix Place. The museum marks the rebirth of a nationally significant museum and archive collection, which was almost lost in the rush to rationalise the Post Office in the 1990s. British Telecom, which had been under the control of the Post Office, was separated off and privatised in the 1980s, transferring its collections to carefully selected museums around the country.
The Post Office sold its grand central London building near St Paul’s Cathedral, which had housed the National Postal Museum in its basement since 1969, and moved its archives and records to office premises at Mount Pleasant. There was public access to the archive search rooms there, but it had a tiny exhibition area and no display space for the collections, which were put into storage in Essex.
Responsibility for the museum and archive collections was shifted to the Postal Heritage Trust, which was created in 1998 with support from Royal Mail and the Post Office. Planning the future development of postal heritage at a time when services were contracting across the country must have been difficult, but in 2011 the bold decision was taken by the trust to develop a site at Mount Pleasant for a new postal museum. This grew into a £26m project, financed in part by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
It involved converting a three-storey former printing factory across the road from the cramped postal archive into a substantial museum and archive facility, “bringing five centuries of communications history to life”. Whether this alone would create a sustainable heritage project must have been one of the risk factors in the business plan, but the novel idea of incorporating the Mail Rail experience as part of the visitor offer must have swayed any doubters.
The permanent galleries of the museum are divided into five zones, working in a loose chronological format over five centuries from the appointment of the first master of the posts by Henry VIII in 1512. Rather than taking a detailed plod through postal history, significant or quirky stories are explored with the use of a variety of media and by highlighting key features of the collection, such as a priceless original sheet of the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black. The displays have been designed to appeal to a range of audiences and age groups. One example is an interactive game beside an early mail coach where visitors take on the role of a guard faced with various crises and choices on his journey between London and Bristol.
One of the most creative periods in postal history was the 1930s, when Stephen Tallents, one of the founders of public relations in Britain, introduced publicity posters and created the GPO Film Unit, which was responsible for the short promotional films now regarded as classics of the British documentary movement. A sequence of these is shown permanently in the museum galleries and include my two favourites, The Fairy of the Phone and the fabulous Night Mail, which follows the overnight postal special from London to Glasgow. I challenge anyone not to be moved by the perfect combination of Harry Watt’s cinematography, WH Auden’s specially composed poem and Benjamin Britten’s innovative music.
The lost art of letter writing
I was a little disappointed that the permanent galleries of the museum are not larger. In a reversal of the norm, the excellent museum guide actually contains far more information and images than the galleries. But perhaps this is as it should be: most museums still have too much indigestible text and most visitors don’t read it.
Less information is more enjoyable for most people, and anyone wishing to follow up can use the archive search rooms and library above the galleries. There is no obvious room for the expansion of the displays, but the layout could be adapted fairly easily. There is also a temporary exhibition gallery and the museum has a busy programme of events and activities that will be expanded. Fortunately, the idea that the museum’s niche collection would simply cater for philatelists and stamp collectors has long gone.
The Mail Rail experience has to be booked in advance and is physically separate from the main museum, but can be visited before or after the galleries. There is also a dedicated family “play and learn” section in this building called Sorted!, which is designed for children under eight. They enter a colourful miniature world of mail here, where they can engage with trolleys, slides, pulleys and mail chutes, drive a wooden mail van or deliver letters in a mini-neighbourhood of streets and houses.
It looks great, but as I saw it while it was pristine and before any young visitors had used it I can’t say whether Sorted! will survive a daily battering. I did wonder whether children write, post or receive letters these days, but perhaps the Postal Museum will find ways to promote these lost arts in the digital age.
There is little in the new museum about postal services today and in the future, which I find slightly chilling, though understandable. Postman Pat and his chums are nearly all becoming casual workers these days and no doubt artificial intelligence and drones will replace them before long. But it is comforting and encouraging to find the central role of the post in our collective past given such careful and creative attention. The new Postal Museum deserves every success.
Oliver Green is a research fellow at the London Transport Museum
Main funder Heritage Lottery Fund
Exhibition design Haley Sharpe Design
Construction management Blue Sky Building
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Train manufacturer Severn Lamb
Mail Rail was closed in 2003 and in its long working life since 1927, it was always a hidden operation, unseen by the public but at the heart of the nation’s postal services. Now, you can enter the cavernous underground environment of the former engineering depot at Mount Pleasant in Clerkenwell, central London, and ride in a newly built human-sized (just) train through part of this miniature train network, inches away from the stalactites and tunnel rings above your head.
During the ride, a former engineer explains how the line worked and points out the graveyard where old trains lie entombed forever. When you stop at the deserted station platforms on your circuit, an impressive projected audiovisual display recreates the history of the railway and its role in moving mail at critical times, such as the second world war. The growing public fascination with what goes on unseen beneath the city will make this is an irresistible draw as a heritage attraction.
Going on a journey
The Mail Rail experience is a brilliant marketing hook for the Postal Museum, which has reopened just over the road in the appropriately named Phoenix Place. The museum marks the rebirth of a nationally significant museum and archive collection, which was almost lost in the rush to rationalise the Post Office in the 1990s. British Telecom, which had been under the control of the Post Office, was separated off and privatised in the 1980s, transferring its collections to carefully selected museums around the country.
The Post Office sold its grand central London building near St Paul’s Cathedral, which had housed the National Postal Museum in its basement since 1969, and moved its archives and records to office premises at Mount Pleasant. There was public access to the archive search rooms there, but it had a tiny exhibition area and no display space for the collections, which were put into storage in Essex.
Responsibility for the museum and archive collections was shifted to the Postal Heritage Trust, which was created in 1998 with support from Royal Mail and the Post Office. Planning the future development of postal heritage at a time when services were contracting across the country must have been difficult, but in 2011 the bold decision was taken by the trust to develop a site at Mount Pleasant for a new postal museum. This grew into a £26m project, financed in part by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
It involved converting a three-storey former printing factory across the road from the cramped postal archive into a substantial museum and archive facility, “bringing five centuries of communications history to life”. Whether this alone would create a sustainable heritage project must have been one of the risk factors in the business plan, but the novel idea of incorporating the Mail Rail experience as part of the visitor offer must have swayed any doubters.
The permanent galleries of the museum are divided into five zones, working in a loose chronological format over five centuries from the appointment of the first master of the posts by Henry VIII in 1512. Rather than taking a detailed plod through postal history, significant or quirky stories are explored with the use of a variety of media and by highlighting key features of the collection, such as a priceless original sheet of the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black. The displays have been designed to appeal to a range of audiences and age groups. One example is an interactive game beside an early mail coach where visitors take on the role of a guard faced with various crises and choices on his journey between London and Bristol.
One of the most creative periods in postal history was the 1930s, when Stephen Tallents, one of the founders of public relations in Britain, introduced publicity posters and created the GPO Film Unit, which was responsible for the short promotional films now regarded as classics of the British documentary movement. A sequence of these is shown permanently in the museum galleries and include my two favourites, The Fairy of the Phone and the fabulous Night Mail, which follows the overnight postal special from London to Glasgow. I challenge anyone not to be moved by the perfect combination of Harry Watt’s cinematography, WH Auden’s specially composed poem and Benjamin Britten’s innovative music.
The lost art of letter writing
I was a little disappointed that the permanent galleries of the museum are not larger. In a reversal of the norm, the excellent museum guide actually contains far more information and images than the galleries. But perhaps this is as it should be: most museums still have too much indigestible text and most visitors don’t read it.
Less information is more enjoyable for most people, and anyone wishing to follow up can use the archive search rooms and library above the galleries. There is no obvious room for the expansion of the displays, but the layout could be adapted fairly easily. There is also a temporary exhibition gallery and the museum has a busy programme of events and activities that will be expanded. Fortunately, the idea that the museum’s niche collection would simply cater for philatelists and stamp collectors has long gone.
The Mail Rail experience has to be booked in advance and is physically separate from the main museum, but can be visited before or after the galleries. There is also a dedicated family “play and learn” section in this building called Sorted!, which is designed for children under eight. They enter a colourful miniature world of mail here, where they can engage with trolleys, slides, pulleys and mail chutes, drive a wooden mail van or deliver letters in a mini-neighbourhood of streets and houses.
It looks great, but as I saw it while it was pristine and before any young visitors had used it I can’t say whether Sorted! will survive a daily battering. I did wonder whether children write, post or receive letters these days, but perhaps the Postal Museum will find ways to promote these lost arts in the digital age.
There is little in the new museum about postal services today and in the future, which I find slightly chilling, though understandable. Postman Pat and his chums are nearly all becoming casual workers these days and no doubt artificial intelligence and drones will replace them before long. But it is comforting and encouraging to find the central role of the post in our collective past given such careful and creative attention. The new Postal Museum deserves every success.
Oliver Green is a research fellow at the London Transport Museum
Project data
Cost £26mMain funder Heritage Lottery Fund
Exhibition design Haley Sharpe Design
Construction management Blue Sky Building
Architect Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Train manufacturer Severn Lamb