Thursday Postcard Hunt | English Houses

 

The ceiling in the Drawing Room of Quex House. Made from papier mâché, the ceiling is inspired by Persian designs and constructed by Italian plasterers. 

Historic Hampstead houses: Kenwood House, Admiral House, Burr or Burgh House and Fenton House.

Dickens House Museum (Broadstairs, England, UK). Outside and one of the rooms ("Betsey Trotwood's Parlour").

The Old Curiosity Shop in Broadstairs (England, UK). Nowadays, a café.

Postcards sent by Laura (the UK).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt

July theme: ARCHITECTURE

• Week 1 - Churches
• Week 2 - Houses
• Week 3 - Palaces
• Week 4 - Stations
• Week 5 - Shelters

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Enjoying the Summer

Today's theme of Thursday Postcard Hunt is Time: Seasonal. I have recently got several postcards about different ways of enjoying the nice weather, like...

Going out with friends

Casa de trencadís, Benimaclet, València. Illustration by Abraham Mondría. I used to live close to this street!

Reading in the garden

The Novel, by Frank Dicey (1880-1888). Although this woman is overdressed for our hot summer...

Taking time for your hobbies

Postcard from a Postcrossing meeting held in Banyoles on 20 April 2024. Illustration by Roser MatasRoser Matas.

Going to festivals

Sweeps is a symbol of the beginning of the British summer, which was welcomed by chimney sweeps and Morris dancers. The event was designed to recreate the joy enjoyed by chimney sweeps on their traditional holiday and was even mentioned in a Charles Dickens article in 1836.

Summer nights outside

To end a perfect summer day, nothing better than a well conducted frogs concert on a summer night!

Postcards sent by Bruno and Imma (PC), Laura (the UK) and Bryon (Canada).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt

June theme: TIME

• Week 1 - Sunrise/Sunset
• Week 2 - Seasonal
• Week 3 - Ancient (geology, buildings, artefacts)
• Week 4 - Clocks or daily rituals (eating, working, arrivals/departures...)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

HitM | In Rochester

Two more interesting houses for the Houses in the Mail project, sent by Laura (the UK).

Eastgate House is an Elizabethan townhouse in Rochester, Kent, England. It is notable for its association with author Charles Dickens, featuring as Westgate in The Pickwick Papers and as the Nun's House in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Now a Dickens Museum (not really... See Lata's comment!), the grounds of Eastgate House contain the Swiss chalet in which Dickens penned several of his novels.

It seems that a tunnel was built between the main house and the writing chalet... so the author avoided to get his shoes dirty when he passed from one place to another (?!).

Literary Houses on Postcards

After Dicken's House...

Keats House

Keats House, in Hampstead (North London, the UK), once occupied by the English Romantic poet John Keats. I cannot help showing another postcard from this museum. Is there a better way to finish a love letter?

Ever truly yours, John Keats

Chiswick House

Chiswick House is located in west London (the UK). It was designed by Lord Burlington and completed in 1729. There are a lot of literary details in this house. For instance, this furniture that finished in Chatsworth House, the building that inspired Jane Austen Pemberley's of Pride and Prejudice... As my friend wrote, the whole house is like being inside a novel. 

She also told me that every room has a different colour. I like to have postcards of inside and outside. 

Dickens's Houses

I have posted here about Charles Dickens's personal mail box at Gad's Hill Place. This room and the author's desk also appeared in the video. So it was a nice surprise when I received this postcard some days later, sent by Laura (the UK).

On the back:

Luke Fildes, the illustrator to Dickens's last unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, produced a drawing of Dickens's study at Gad's Hill Place shortly after the Author's death. It appeared as an engraving in the 1870 Christmas number of The Graphic, together with a lament that readers could no longer expect Christmas messages from Dickens.

It arrived along with another postcard featuring Charles Dickens Museum (48 Doughty St., London). It was the author's home from 1837 until the late 1839. It opened as a Museum by the Dickens Fellowship in 1925.

Even if it wasn't Dickens's house, it is a perfect postcard!

Update: I have just received this bookmark!

Charles Dickens's Personal Postbox

Can you imagine that you send so many letters that you have your personal post box at home? Let's say more than 14,000 letters over fifty years?

So did Charles Dickens. He requested a letterbox to avoid the steep one-mile road to the village of Higham. The postal service installed in 1859 a wall box at his residence, Gad's Hill Place (nowadays a school). It was one of the earliest to be introduced in Britain.

The Letter Box Study Group and the Charles Dickens Centre Charitable Trust have recently asked the Royal Mail to put back the postbox in service. Unused since 1990, it was recommissioned the day before yesterday. You can see here the ceremony: how Dickens' great-great-granddaughter sent the first letter through this box to her own granddaughter, who is currently Dickens' youngest descendant.

A special Dickensian postmark will be applied to any pre-Christmas mail posted in the box.

(More about this news here.)

And More Christmas Stamps

Last week I wrote that certain stamp was a favourite... And as part of Christmas' magic I have just received it as a postcard! (A bit damaged, but still).

Well, but today is about stamps. The theme for Sunday Stamps in Viridian's blog is again Holiday stamps, I'm going to show the few Christmas stamps I have received this year:

From the UK

Timothy Cratchit (aka Tiny Tim) is a character from the novel A Christmas Carol, by English writer Charles Dickens. This used to be my favourite book as a child. I have probably read this novel more than thirty or even forty times (Sure!).

From the UK

This stamp has been designed by a 10-years-old school girl. She and the girl who designed the stamp below (7 years old) won among more than 240,000 entries to the contest. It is only the third time in Royal Mail's near 500-year history that children have designed the stamps for Christmas. You can read more here.

More received stamps from the UK:

Don't you love a Christmas stamps about Christmas cards?!?


I am not sure it these pre-euro stamps are Christmas stamps, but I think so (Update: Yes!). I just wanted to show them because they are really lovely!

From the Netherlands

From the Netherlands

Charles Dickens on Stamps

Sent by Laura (the United Kingdom).
Letter with Charles Dickens stamps.
But she has sent more stamps featuring characters from The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist: