London - National Postal Museum

The National Postal Museum, opened in 1966 and extended in 1969, has a collection of some 350,000 stamps from all over the world, together with artists' drawings, philatelic books and documents on the history of the postal service. The main elements in the museum are the Reginald M. Phillips collection of 19th century British stamps, which covers the development, planning and issue of the world's first postage stamp - a British invention - and the Post Office's collection of British and foreign stamps. The museum is housed in the King Edward Building, the west wing of the General Post Office, which has a vast hall of counters.

The postal museum is of interest to the general tourist because it gives the history of the British mails from Elizabethan times to modern computerization. Of note are the history of the mails during World War II and the private subway system which ran letters between post offices in London.