Workshops wound by wind and water
The Windmills & Watermills set, to be issued on June 20, will salute an endearing and important part of Britain’s industrial archaeology, the mechanisms which harnessed natural energy in the days before steam, coal and petrol engines, and cheap electricity.
Water power, harnessed by a waterwheel in fast-flowing water, was initially used for grinding grain and fulling cloth, and later for driving processing machinery in metal and textile factories.
Wind power, harnessed by sails mounted high in the air flow, was primarily used for grinding corn, especially in areas where flowing water was less easily available.
The Machin Definitive
Birthday celebrations for a very familiar face
Royal Mail’s celebration of 50 years of the Machin definitive comprises two miniature sheets to be released on June 5, the precise anniversary of the first issue.
The Machin Definitive - 50 Years of a Design Icon
One, subtitled 50 Years Of A Design Icon, has six new 1st class stamps, each with the familiar Machin portrait in use since 1967 alongside a preliminary design concept dating from the development of the series during 1966.
The other, subtitled Golden Anniversary Celebration, has seven stamps, six of which are reprints of original decimal issues from between 1971 and 2013, and the other a new £1 value.
A set of 10 stamps to be issued on May 4 will feature Songbirds, the wildlife that is equally familiar to British eyes and ears.
Birdsong builds to a peak between January and May each year, and is the soundtrack to the spring and early summer in our woodland, parkland and gardens.
Some of the featured birds are very familiar, some less well-known and seldom seen.
The Racehorse Legends issue, released on April 6, honours eight equine legends of flat racing and national hunt racing in Britain.
Illustrated by Michael Heslop, each stamp shows a famous horse in action during one of its most celebrated races, with five different racecourses featured in all.
The horses selected are among the most popular and successful in racing history, from the mid 1960s to the present day.
Royal Mail will issue a set of stamps on March 14 honouring David Bowie, one of the most influential figures in modern music.
Issued in the year of what would have been his 70th birthday, and marking 50 years since he released his first album, it comprises six self-adhesive stamps reproducing some of his most famous album covers, and a gummed miniature sheet of four based on photographs of Bowie performing live, in tours spanning four decades.
The self-adhesives have free-form edges showing the arc of the vinyl record protruding from the side, in a style used previously in 2010 (for the Classic Album Covers set which included his 1972 album The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars) and 2016.
A set of six stamps and a miniature sheet to be issued on February 15 will feature one of Britain’s most recognisable historic landmarks, Windsor Castle.
Founded by William the Conqueror in around 1080, Windsor is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world.
Originally it was simply part of a chain of fortifications established around London following the Norman Conquest, but King Henry I began to turn it into a royal palace as early as the early 12th century, and it remains an important royal residence today.
The Ancient Britain set, to be issued by Royal Mail on January 17, comprises eight stamps depicting four important sites and four exceptional artefacts from prehistoric times.
Photographs of the locations and the objects are overlaid with black or white illustrations to bring them to life, suggesting how ancient people probably worked in them and used them.
Overall, the set spans almost 10,000 years of history, from the late Stone Age (also known as Neolithic) period, through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, to the time when the Romans made their first incursion into Britain.
Until the Millennium series a decade later, few British issues were as revolutionary in design as this one addressing 1989’s Europa theme.
The design of each of the four stamps is bold, colourful and primitive, in this case depicting a number of traditional play objects including a doll’s house, a rigged yacht and a crude robot made out of a cardboard box.
The style is appropriately that of illustrations in a children’s book.
The Christmas issue of 1985 took the great British institution of pantomime as its theme, with the 22p presenting that jolliest of characters, the dame.
All the typical characteristics of the role are included: the ridiculous highly coloured wig, the rosy cheeks and nose, the flouncy padded dress, the fan behind which ‘she’ (the dame is traditionally played by a man) will make mildly rude asides to the audience, and the assertive attitude suggested by the left arm akimbo.
Dusted with stars and sparkle, this design sums up the fun of going to the panto.
Amongst the most magnificent of all Christmas issues was the 1989 set of five celebrating important architectural features of Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, on its 800th anniversary.
Stunning in gold and silver, it was also unusual in having a charity surcharge of 1p on four of the five values.
The 37+1p shows the Triple Arch from the West Front of the cathedral, in silver, within which is a golden figure with exaggerated features, possibly inspired by the carvings on misericords inside the building.
