Who Made The Postbox Topper?

 

Postbox Toppings

All over London, England, and many other cities in the UK and worldwide you can see seasonal postbox toppers. The artistic creations are changed to match seasonal themes and events, but seem to survive rain and all weathers. 

Knitting and Crochet Creators

Who creates them? I have always wondered. Here at last is a notification of the wonderful team who claim credit for this happy, colourful creation. The Women's Institute.

I found, on Etsy website, patterns for the base and season additions such as animals.

I have several photos on my blogs about others which I have seen.

Useful Websites

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1580152326/postbox-topper-base-crochet-pattern-pdfhttps://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1297186187/crochet-pattern-for-post-box-topper

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Updated April 14th 2026.

Yarn bombers on post boxes in England

 Keep your eyes open as you walk or drive around London and cities in the UK.

You never know when you might see an amusing surprise.

 Post box topper in London, in 2025. Photo by Angela Lansbury.  Copyright. 

This little post box topper was in Stanmore, Middlesex, in north west London. I have several more pictures of postbox toppers in my other posts. Wikipedia has more from all over Britain.

This can be done using knitting or crochet. 

Useful Websites

Wikipedia has pictures of yarn bombing by country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_box_topper

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You tube has a video telling you how to design a topping.

Flowers and fish decorate postboxes in London - or DIY your own downloading patterns

 On a lovely sunny day in London, bright sun and blue skies. Post boxes are decorated with flowers and fish scenes, made by groups keen on knitting and crochet. For a jolly start to June.

Red post boxes with red rabbits and squirrels. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Americans call post boxes mail boxes. In London post boxes which are this shape are also called pillar boxes.

Websites

On Etsy you can buy patterns for postbox toppings as digital downloads. Designs include flowers and Xmas.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/market/post_box_toppers_patterns

I have other posts with pictures of pillar box toppings. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Postbox topper - sea lion and fish

 

Post box topper. In Hatch End. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Post box toppers are back, springtime rabbits in London - for you to view, share, and copy

 

Postbox topper of knitted rabbits in March. Harrow. UK. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I saw this from the bus and photographed it through the windor. An entertainment for pedestrian shoppers and those passing on the bus. After a week or so without the toppers, I had missed them. Lovely to see them back.

Every one is different. I shall now look for some more. It is a British thing.

I wonder whether the idea will spread worldwide. I think it should. A real expression of creativity and public art. Something to enliven your daily walk. If you are on holiday overseas, show it to your friends, acquaintances, any friends who knit, crochet or like crafts, and ask them to show their local art or craft group.

The designs look impressive. If you google online from a laptop or your phone, you can find knitting patterns for toys and 3D animals, cartoon characters, all kinds of creatures. 

I imagine that once you have tried a couple of basic patterns, you get the idea of how to knit or crochet circles, and spheres, ovals, change colours, draw faces to knit or embroider. Then you can start being inventive, and copy photos of events, turning pictures of animals and people and small cars and palaces and places, turning the flat photo into a 3D model or directly into a knitting pattern. 

For a larger project, one person can create the design over the month. Or you could give each person in a group one part of the design. The teamwork could be a bit like the Bayeux tapestry, and the tapestry this century in Fishguard, Wales, which had panels done by different people, following the colours and stitching styles specified. 

Rabbits

The toppers are seasonal. These for March, when springtime officially starts following the equinox, equal night and day, are rabbits, symbol of springtime, breeding. In the UK, we have chocolate rabbits in the newsagents, supermarkets and corner shops. Now, the same happy symbol on top of post boxes, too.

Post box toppers also celebrate sports wins, holidays, and joyful events.

The offical name is yarn bombing. The idea is relatively recent, and appears to have started in 2021. The items are attached to the top of the postbaox with elastic or cords or fence ties. You can find more pictures in my other posts. Also on Facebook. 

Wikipedia Commons had photos of postbox toppers in Cornwall, London, and Norolk, and Scotland. Other yarn bombing has been done in Italy. In England to decorate the bollards . To cover pillars or lamp posts.

Even if you are stuck at home, you can travel the world's streets on the internet, enjoying the street art. Inspiring.

 See next post.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_box_topper

Facebook.com/hashtag/rejuvenatedstreets

Please share links to this post with your family and friends. And anybody you meet who works promoting tourist destinations. 

Mail box topper in London

 Snowy scene on top of a mail box.This one has three little snow white characters with hats and neckties, and a green tree.The colours are red, white, green, black and yellow.

In Cortenay Avenue, on the H14 bus to Northwick Park Hospital from or to Hatch End.

Useful Websites

Wiki post box toppers (American mail box toppers)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_box_topper

TFL (Transport for London) H14 bus route

https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/

https://tfl.gov.uk/bus/route/h14/

TravelwithAngelaLansbury.blogspot.com

Posts with pictures showing mail box toppers.

Post box in Long Elmes, London, with knitted hat - where else, what else?

Who likes the hats on post boxes all over the UK?  They brighten the day of the postie, we used to say postman, then along came postwomen, then confusion.  the hats brighten the day of people posting letters. they brighten my day as we drive along unfamiliar streets. Spotting one is like dicvering buried treasure.

A picture from the past which I saved in drafts  because there was no internet on an H14 London bus. I dont know how we communicate in an accident, but London underground train service is better for bloggers like me. 

This knitted hat is on a postbox in Long Elmes in Harrow, North-west London, England UK. These knitted hats are on the circular red post boxes all over London. 

One has to admire the ingenuity of the knitters. The hats are not designs you could find in catalogues. I take that back.  I did a further search for mail box, post box, letter box, knitted cover, crochet cover. You can get patterns for knitted toys.  Once you have mastered or discovered patterns for animals, Santas, dice shapes for transport, doll shapes for humans, letters of the alphabet, you can get creative. 

Photo by Angela Lansbury Copyright.

They are in crochet as well as knitting. The locations are as far north as Scotland and as far south as Cornwall.

Other designs have included one for Charles III.

If you want to see more, here are some links.

Useful websites

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/graywolf_23462/crochet-post-box-toppers/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_box_topper

https://www.letsknit.co.uk/free-knitting-patterns/knitted-postbox-topper

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Memories Of A Retired Welsh Farmer: Her Two Husbands, Crochet and Sheep Farming In Wales

 another writer, widowed 'Ann', entertained me over dinner in with stories of her extraordinary life, full of surprises. She started with the story of her wonderful marriage to her second husband, who she met when he taught her to drive. Driving instructors have to be patient people. Her second marriage was the happy ending to her life. (She has severe health problems, like many at the Writers' Holiday, but beams with happiness.) I had seen her around for year.

But I shall tell you her whole life story in chronological order, starting with her childhood dramas. being sent to a home in WWII during wartime evacuation. She had been living with her father and baby brother when she was a toddler, because her parents were separated early on, because her mother had taken up with another man. Then her father was sent to the war, and in case he did not survive, he sent the small children back from the children's home to their mother who had left her husband. Anne's mother was glad to have two extra ration books because her new man was an illegal Irish immigrant with no ration book for receiving rationed food.

Because of the shortage of food, Ann was so thin that people thought she was half her age.

Ann lived permanently with her mother. Anne's stepfather from Ireland was an illegal immigrant. When people knocked on the door and asked for him by name, Anne was told to say, 'He doesn't live here any more.'

Ann'e mother was glamorous, wore high heels and lipstick and went dancing. Everybody thought she was a lively spark. But at home things were different. She had a fearsome temper. She hit Ann on the head with a shovel. Ann lay in bed bleeding for days. Her mother would not take her to hospital, although she could easily have claimed it was an accident and Ann would have agreed. The mother was afraid of losing the child, the child being taken away, and losing the vital ration books.

Later in Anne's life she married. After having three children, she  quit the marriage. She had wanted to take driving lessons and booked a few.  Her husband did not want her to have driving lessons. Anne took driving lessons. Mid-way, her husband said he was not paying for any more lessons.

When Anne told her driving instructor she was leaving her marital home, he said, "If you are leaving home, I am coming with you." He became her second husband and they were happily married for many years until he died.

He had been married, too. But his wife was not bothered when he left. He did her a favour. She was Catholic and didn't not consider their marriage, which had not been in a Catholic church, to be a proper marriage. Shortly after the divorce she married a Catholic in church, and she dressed in white.

After dinner, Ann told me she used to crochet.

I asked, "With wool?"

'Yes, wool from my sheep."

This sounded bizarre to me, brought up in London. For a woman with sheep in Wales it was pretty normal.

After being widowed, Anne moved to Wales and bought a farm but had no animals. She started with no sheep but local people, local farmers, in her first year, took pity on her and gave her bottle lambs, who were abandoned by their mothers and had to be bottle fed.

What kind of sheep abandons the baby? Possibly one which has given birth early in the mother's life, a young mother. Hm. Interesting. Does this have implications for human beings?

Anne had seven baby lambs the first year. After a year they can have one to two or three babies. Not in succession. simultaneously. Some even gave birth to quads.

In three or four years she had about 70 sheep.

Sheep would get out through the fences. Other farmers would come to collect their strayed sheep.
They would say, 'I'll send in my dog to cut out my sheep." Cut out meant to round up and lead out.

The farmers could recognize their sheep by the marking. The dog would recognize the sheep by the smell.

I asked former farmer, Anne, "Do you eat meat, such as lamb?"

She replied, "I prefer mutton. More flavour."

Anne is now retired and her children tell her, "You should write your life story." I think she should, don't you?

Bored on Trains and Planes? How to Crochet for Absolute Beginners: Part 1

Here's how to crochet. A project if you think you'll be bored stuck at an airport for hours. Make a list of things you want to learn. You could stick to crochet, then do a project every journey. Or pick different skills. Learn how to crochet on one trip. Knit on the next. Write a sonnet the last one - about your other projects.

Do you remember the girl I saw on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) train to the world Travel Market at Excel in London? She was knitting scarves for Christmas presents.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.