It is beyond doubt that the introduction of railways in mid-19th century to Great Britain transformed the population’s ability to travel. Stage coach journeys that were time-consuming and costly were swept away by the quicker and affordable Railways, this allowed people to reach distant towns and cities in just a few hours and in previously unimaginable numbers, and so a boom in domestic tourism was born. One popular destination for these new travellers was Dartmoor, from london this journey previously had taken about 5 days by stage coach, but when the railway line was built in 1845, it was as little as 5 hours away and could be reached for the cost of about £2.

Dartmoor had captured the public’s imagination through novels like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, R. D. Blackmore’s Christowell, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, as well as numerous paintings that showcased its wild, rugged beauty.

Residents of these emerging tourist hotspots quickly seized the opportunity to generate income, offering accommodation, local transport, printed guides, and organised tours.

It was in this climate that Letterboxing was born. The first record of a container being placed was by James Perrott a local guide and master fisherman. The earliest mention was by William Crossing, who wrote in his 1854 guide to Dartmoor that “James Perrott of Chagford set up a small cairn at remote Cranmere Pool on North Dartmoor. Inside, he put a jar with his calling cards for visitors who had ventured to the lonely, bleak spot to pick up.” The 16-mile walk from Chagford across boggy, rough moorland and was difficult even in the best conditions, it soon attracted hardy tourists looking for adventure on the moors. These intrepid travellers began leaving their own calling cards, which most Gentlemen carried to prove they had made the trip. This eccentric practice caught the public’s imagination and became popular among the growing number of tourists flocking to the area.

In 1888, a small tin box replaced the original jar, hikers began leaving self-addressed postcards for the next visitor to collect and mail back to them. The next person to visit the container would gather the mail and post it from their hometown using either the newly established red pillar boxes or their local Post Office, giving rise to the name “Letterboxing.” The practice on Dartmoor slowly expanded, with additional letterboxes established the next being at Taw Marsh in 1894 with many more placed over the decades.

Letterboxing has grown into a global, informal hobby that combines orienteering, art, and puzzle-solving. Participants hide small, weatherproof boxes and share clues to their location through catalogs, websites, or word of mouth, some detective work is always required to find the final location and the container. Each box contains a notebook and a custom rubber stamp. Finders stamp their own notebooks and then use their personal stamp in the letterbox’s logbook to show they’ve found it. The system is far less organised than modern-day geocaching, but for many, that’s part of its charm.

With the advent of Geocaching, a type of cache called the “Letterbox Hybrid” was created. These caches may use clues instead of coordinates to guide players to the cache container. Sometimes, the final container is not at the posted coordinates, but it always has a stamp for letterboxing that is meant to stay with the cache. Unlike traditional letterboxes, these are regulated like regular caches, and their locations are published on geocaching.com with their own icon. The oldest Geocaching Letterbox Hybrid still available as of this writing is “The Standing Stone” (Northumberland) GCE6DA. There are now approximately 3,800 Letterbox Hybrids listed in the UK.

Finding the Original Letterbox

Cranmere Pool is located in the middle of a triangle formed by three rivers, and the landscape is an extreme swamp, representing the challenge of letterboxing. It demands good navigational skills, a high level of fitness, and an eye for detail.