Letterboxing is a sort of treasure hunt undertaken on Dartmoor in Devon, UK. It basically consists of finding letterboxes containing rubber stamps and a visitors book. A book of clues is made available to help find the boxes. At any point in time there are about 3,000 boxes on the moor.
Letterboxing was started in the last century by James Perrott, who was known as the Dartmoor Guide. He used to take his clients to Cranmere Pool on the North Moor and get them to leave a visiting card in a pickle jar left in a cairn on the site. The cairn was built in 1854. In 1905 two walkers left a visitors' book on the site and by 1908 over 1700 had visited Cranmere Pool.
Even Royalty have visited Cranmere Pool, when the then Prince of Wales visited it in 1921. The next Letterbox was established in 1894 at Belstone Tor. By the 1970's there were 15 boxes on the moor.
The original idea was to leave a letter in the box which would be picked up by the next visitor, stamped with the appropriate box stamp and sent onto you. Hence, the name Letterboxing. However, this is no longer undertaken due to vandalism and probably the large number of boxes out on the moor. Now, Letterboxers just stamp the visitors book with their own personal stamp and collect the stamp for the Letterbox.
The 100 Club is the closest you will get to the official organisation surrounding Letterboxing. It has over 11,000 members and you can join once you have visited 100 different letterboxes. There is a badge available to celebrate finding 100 boxes. Further badges are available for visiting 200, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 and yes 5,000 different boxes. If you have a dog there is even a 100 Club for dogs.
The 100 Club meet twice yearly in March & October on the Sunday that the clocks change. The meet is open all day at Lee Moor Public Hall. At the meet you can get the latest catalogue of Dartmoor Letterboxes together with all those essential sundries that all Letterboxers need!!!.
Lee Moor Public Hall is the new location from October 2001 following closure of the Dartmoor Prison Officers Mess, where the Meet was held in the past. To check on the location of the next Meet visit The Official Letterboxing Site.Best of luck in your searching for Letterboxes.
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