​Prominent Box Buildings               Courtesy Rose Ledbury      December 2025
The Poynder Fountain was a prominent feature of the emerging centre of Box when it was built in 1878. It was colourful with its pink marble, important (as signified by the railings around it) and a symbol of a newly emerging affluence with the buildings of Box Schools in 1875.
This fabulous postcard shows Box in 1905 sent to wish a happy birthday to Eliza Smith of South View, Middlehill - and a good supply of picture postcards for her collection. Eliza Jane Smith's  husband, William, was a nurseryman for GWR. The Co-operative shop has not yet been built and you can see the Estate Office of the Northey Office. The location of the offices is perhaps a deliberate rebuttal of the influence of the lord of Hartham manor who had built the Poynder Fountain a generation earlier in 1878. Just behind the building you can see the chimney of the Box Brewery. The view clearly shows how the A4 road had been raised at the top of the Market Place to allow through traffic a level roadway. 
This postcard was sent in 1924 and records Box as: This is just the sweetest place, very old fashioned and picturesque by a visitor to Bath. The appearance of central Box was about to change, however.
This image shows the newly-built Co-operative shop shortly after it was built in 1925.
The centre of Box had totally altered by the Second World War to become an area full of shops. The signage shows that a car park had taken over the old Dyer's Undertakers Yard in the Market Place. The shops shown are Les Bawtree's barber shop, Astons Grocery Shop, and Haines's knitware and sweet shop,, then the Methodist Church.

Historic Churches 
Many postcards simply reused old photos (often by Augustus Perren) to show the uniqueness of village life. The image above was probably made shortly after the organ was moved into the south aisle in 1898 and was sent as a postcard in 1908.
The image above left was an attempt to show a different view to the classic depiction of Perren's Box Church and spire.

Ditteridge Church
For visitors it was the churches and historic buildings that were often used for postcards. The oldest building was Ditteridge Church when the evidence of ivy-clad walls symbolised its heritage.
​Hazelbury Manor & Chapel Plaister
​This rather strange image left was sent as a postcard in 1907. It shows the entrance gates to Hazelbury Manor but little of the building itself. At that time, the house was rather diminished as a rundown farm. In contrast the view above shows the new terrace built by GJ Kidston in the 1920s to show off the south aspect.
The discovery that Chapel Plaister was a medieval chapel of ease in 1893 made it an obvious subject for postcards. Some celbrated the antiquity, but others concentrated on its location.
Cheney Court
The image above is the classic postcard of the ivy-clad house dated 1908 but the postcard below is unusual in just showing the terrace which appears to have a similar date.
​Commemorating Roads
It wasn't only historic buildings that people wanted to celebrate in postcards. People took a civic pride where new roads had been built on major routes.
These two images show little of the area except that roads were tree-lined and had been macadamised. The postcards date from 1911 (left) and from 1910 (right) which has been used to make a New Year's greeting.
Box Hill
The roads of Box Hill represeneted a view of modern road surfacing for visitors coming from London to the west country. This was also a rarely seen side of the village for those on the west of the parish when long steep hills throughout the area deterred the elderly, unwell and even ladies in long dresses.