For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Out-Eiffeling the Eiffel Tower (24.09.13)

Riling the French has been a national sport since before Waterloo, but no one has taken it to the lengths that Sir Edward Watkin did 150 years ago in Wembley.

In 1869 he proposed constructing a tunnel under the English Channel and had actually started digging when it was pointed out that he lacked the necessary planning permission both in Kent and in France.

Undeterred he planned to beat the Frenchies by building an Eiffel Tower – only taller.

He established the Metropolitan Tower Construction Company and attracted many anti-Franco loyal subscribers.

He contacted M. Eiffel to design the tower but with the stipulation of making it 150 ft higher than the original, although unsurprisingly the French engineer declined the generous offer.

Sir Edward then announced a competition, with a prize of 500 guineas which attracted dozens of designs for his tower. The submissions came from as far afield as Sweden, Turkey and Australia, and included the Leaning Tower of Pisa – only erect. One bedecked with hanging gardens and with a nod to modernity it was intended to house a community of vegetarians.

The winner designed a copy of Paris’s original and in 1891 work began on 280 acres of the hallow turf that Wembley Stadium now stands.

More than 100,000 people came to see the work in progress, but it quickly became obvious that funds were not available to complete this monument to patriotism.

The tower became known as ‘The Shareholder’s Dismay’ and stopped at 150ft prompting locals to demand recompense for spoiling their views with his ugly stump.

It wasn’t until 1907 that fewer than a dozen people turned up to watch as demolition experts blew up the whole sad assembly.

Rising from the wreckage of Watkin’s folly 16 years later was the Empire Stadium the centrepiece of the British Empire Exhibition. With its twin towers it soon became the shrine to English football until it was demolished in 2003.

For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.

Sentinels of our streets (17.09.13)

Boris described it as “a national treasure of global importance”, and yet one of London’s least-known museums boasts an average of just 10 visitors a day; it is the British Postal Museum & Archive.

We now live in a world of emailing, twittering, texting and Facebooking each other. I’m as bad as the next techie-junkie for why should I be writing this post!), but for over a century-and-a-half we managed to get by with the Royal Mail – Thank you very much.

Currently situated behind Mount Pleasant Sorting Office the archive in its title doesn’t do it justice. A collection of old phone boxes; every sort of pillar box ever built; two million stamps, many never issued and worth thousands; and all houses in two-and-a-half miles of archives.

The museum has its own 6-mile private underground stretching from Paddington to Whitechapel which was in use by the Post Office until 2003. There is also the British Postal Museum Store at Debden, Essex for larger objects.

When producers of the BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford want to recreate an authentic Victorian post office counter, they borrowed an original from here.

During the Blitz, the pillar box was often the only thing left standing on East London’s streets so deep are their foundations, but that should keep these sentinels of our streets immune from thieves with a JCB digger.

In 1874 the Post Office switched from green pillar boxes to the familiar red to make them more visible in urban fog – people kept bumping into them.

As with the telephone box letter writing and posting is becoming rarer, and we need a museum to celebrate this lost art. With £20 million from the National Lottery and a further £5 million from the sale of some of their collection the British Postal Museum & Archive plans to open a proper museum attracting 80,000 visitors a year, and it has plans to reopen a section of the old London Post Office Railway for tourist journeys.

With the imminent sale of Royal Mail, we might one day need a museum to show future generations this uniquely British institution.