It is a paradox that although all but two of the 33 World Heritage Sites in the UK feature on Royal Mail stamps, only four of these are actually identified as such. The remaining properties, as explained in last month’s article, appear on stamps which either commemorate other themes, or incorporate images of World Heritage Sites incidentally. Table 1 (pages 72-73) lists the Royal Mail stamps issued for each of the World Heritage Sites in the UK. There are two blanks: neither Blaenavon Industrial Landscape nor Studley Royal Park have been included on GB stamps.
As might be expected, the majority of stamps are commemorative issues, although the list also includes two definitive stamps depicting Caernarfon castle and Edinburgh castle respectively and a Northern Ireland 2nd class regional definitive stamp (Giant’s Causeway). Both castles also feature on Smilers sheets.
Not only is the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey the most frequently depicted property, it is also the property which has the most recent addition to the list, with the issue of His Majesty King Charles III: A New Reign featuring Westminster Abbey on the 1st class value. The World Heritage connection, of course, is with Caernarfon castle, where the investiture of the Prince of Wales took place in 1969. Three of the five stamps in the set designed by
