Post box, Lisburn Road outside The King's Hall, Belfast

A free-standing cast-iron post box of early twentieth-century date, erected outside the King's Hall on the Lisburn Road between 1931 and 1936. The box first appears on the Ordnance Survey town plan of 1938 and probably dates from around the time of the King's Hall's opening in 1934.

The post box is of standard cylindrical design, painted throughout in pillar box red except for its black base. It stands 5 feet high and measures 21 inches in diameter at its cap, 15½ inches at the shaft, and 17 inches at the base. Below a shallow oversailing cap with a fluted edge is the hinged door, fitted with a raised cup handle on the right and a raised lock and keyhole above. At the top of the door is a hooded rectangular aperture for letter insertion, above which sits a removable plate holder showing the day of the next collection, marked with "NEXT COLLECTION" in raised letters. Below the aperture is a notice plate holder containing the collection times and the box number (BT9 254). Lower still is a "GR" cipher with a raised crown above and "POST OFFICE" below. The maker's name on the base has been over-painted and is no longer legible.

The box bears the Royal Cipher of King George V (who reigned 1910–1936), indicating its date of manufacture. This represents an important phase in postal history: the iconic red cylindrical pillar boxes were first introduced in Britain in 1879 but did not originally bear Royal ciphers. This design was corrected in 1887 when new boxes were inscribed with "VR" (Victoria Regina). The addition of the monarch's initials became standard practice thereafter. This appears to be a B-type post box, the smaller of the two sizes that were produced.

The post box is of historical and social importance as evidence of the transformation of Britain's postal infrastructure by the end of the nineteenth century, when pillar boxes and wall-mounted post boxes became ubiquitous features of urban landscapes. These boxes were the principal means by which the public could deposit correspondence for dispatch, fundamentally altering how people communicated with one another. The cylindrical pillar box design, despite minor modifications to letter aperture height and Royal cipher designs between 1879 and the 1950s, has remained one of Britain's most recognisable symbols.