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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;afantiques, post: 434435, member: 25&quot;]In my opinion it is a country house letter box. </p><p>Country house, in British does not mean any old house in the county, although it would be in the country. Think more &#039;Downton Abbey. Although most are smaller, maybe down to a mere 10 bedrooms plus staff accomodation. Any reasonably wealthy family would have a country&nbsp; house and a town house, to be occupied at appropriate seasons of the year and the social calendar. The modern day term &#039;town house&#039; used for a small terrace house is a devolved perversion of what would originally have been typically a large house (think &#039;Upstairs Downstairs) in a row of similar houses, often in a square around a private central garden. </p><p><br /></p><p>Typically a country house would have a letter box somewhere convenient for guests and family to leave letters, a member of staff would collect these and send whoever was bottom of the pecking order off to the local post office with them, once or twice a day. Usually they would stand on a table in the entrance hall and more elaborate examples fetch high prices at auction.</p><p>This one may have been for somewhere less palatial than many and a wall mounting and a plain appearance was suitable.</p><p><br /></p><p>I find the cigar box idea less than convincing, as stated cigar humidors followed pretty strict conventions on construction. A cedar wood lining was almost always a feature.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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