Royal Mail will issue a set of six stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet devoted to Hampton Court Palace on July 31.
Located beside the River Thames west of London, this is the most extensive surviving Tudor building in England, and one of the grandest palaces in Britain, ranked among its top historic tourist attractions.
Given by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to King Henry VIII, who loved it as a place to hold court and go hunting, it was developed into the most modern royal residences of the early 16th century.
Royal Mail is marking the culmination of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations with a set of eight stamps featuring archive photographs of her taken at a variety of significant events over the past 60 years.
The stamps will be issued on May 31, in time for the Jubilee bank holiday events of June 4-5.
Issued in four se-tenant pairs, each comprising one colour and one black-and-white design, they give an insight into the diverse duties the Queen performs, from delivering Christmas broadcasts to reviewing troops as the head of the UK’s armed forces.
Continuing its decade-long fascination with film and television franchises, Royal Mail will release a special issue devoted to the Harry Potter films on October 16.
Ten sheet stamps illustrate some of the best known young characters and modes of transport from the films, while a five-stamp miniature sheet depicts professors from Hogwarts School, setagainst a background of the magical Marauder’s Map.
All the images are based on film or publicity stills, and Royal Mail says the stamps have hidden details visible only under ultra-violet light.
Royal Mail’s set of eight stamps entitled Heroes of the Covid Pandemic, issued on March 23, features colourful designs by children aged between 7 and 14.
These were selected following a nationwide competition, launched last spring with the support of the Prime Minister, which attracted 606,049 entries, recognised by Guinness World Records as the most ever for a competition of its kind.
Entrants were invited to design postage stamps featuring their own heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic, which first hit the UK in the early months of 2020 and has brought death, illness and hardship to many.
The latest issue from Royal Mail, released on August 12, celebrates Industrial Revolutions, highlighting the pioneering spirit behind some of the most ingenious scientific and engineering advances made in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A set of six stamps in counter sheets features ground-breaking inventions during what may be called the first industrial revolution, based on the exploitation of water and steam power, the use of new materials in construction, improvements in the efficiency of textile manufacturing, and the development of canal and railway transport networks.
A miniature sheet of four entitled The Electric Revolution recalls how these advances were built upon by harnessing the power of electricity, to improve standards of living and speed up communications.
Royal Mail’s Inventive Britain set, to be issued on February 19, celebrates the country’s long and proud history of developing world-changing innovations.
It features eight key British inventions of the past century or so in a range of disciplines, from materials technology to medicine.
Available as four se-tenant pairs, the stamps were designed by GBH, which created original visual interpretations of the inventions for six of the stamps, while the other two are based on existing and computer-generated imagery.
Royal Mail’s third special stamp issue of 2020, on sale from March 17, celebrates the hugely successful James Bond films, based on the fictional British spy originally created by the novellist Ian Fleming.
Comprising six counter-sheet stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet, it is being released two weeks before the latest Bond movie, No Time To Die, arrives in UK cinemas on April2.
This film franchise is claimed to be the longest-running of all time, spanning almost 60 years since Dr No was made in 1962.
