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This unremarkable-looking Victorian pillar box, built by Handysides of Derby, stands on Corporation Street, near to the bridge between Marks and Spencer’s and the Arndale Centre. It achieved fame in the 1990s.

On Saturday 15th June 1996 a huge (1500kg) terrorist bomb, planted by the IRA, exploded causing devastation to Manchester’s commercial district. Twelve buildings, some of historic significance, received structural damage from the blast. Six of these had to be demolished subsequently. The press reporting the next day made much, however, of a red post box (an icon of Englishness) that came out of the blast completely unscathed even though it had stood only a matter of feet away from the van that had contained the bomb (claimed to be the largest to explode in a British city since the Second World War). A few days after the blast, a postman was allowed through the debris to retrieve the post from inside the box.

The post box was removed whilst the area was rebuilt but was returned to its original position in 1999 once redevelopment work was completed.