New Postal Museum is a scrapbook of British history

London’s newest heritage attraction, the £26 million Postal Museum in Clerkenwell, will document Britain's past through the postal service
1/5

Telegrams documenting the night the Titanic sunk, an intercepted first edition of Joyce’s Ulysses — and the stamp that would have been released had Scotland won the 1978 World Cup.

These are among the exhibits soon to be displayed in London’s newest heritage attraction, the £26 million Postal Museum in Clerkenwell.

Opening early next year, the attraction will be split in to two parts — the museum and the Mail Rail.

The former will consist of five “zones” documenting five centuries of the British mail system. Highlights include Suffragette letters delivered to the PM and rare stamp The Penny Black.

Over the road, the Mail Rail will take visitors on a journey through the disused miniature tunnels deep under the streets of London which were previously used to transport letters.

There will also be a learning space, a play zone for children, and more than two-and-a-half-miles of archives.

Officials are expecting 186,000 visitors and 10,000 school visits in its first year. Director Adrian Steel said: “It’s fantastic to have a brand new site — a shop window — to display all of these amazing items that piece together the social history of Britain.”

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in