I have on many occasions placed my feet on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London but was not aware until recently that the granite stone used to construct the Cathedral’s steps originated from Guernsey, the British Channel Island.
My discovery of this fact came as I was browsing PostBeeld’s freestampcatalogue.com website and I came across the stamps shown above, issued by Guernsey in 2008. We have previously featured articles on strangely textured postage stamps and the stamps depicted here come into that category.
In 2008, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of what was the fourth rebuilding
of the historic cathedral, stamps were issued for which a special printing process was used. This involved grinding granite stone from Guernsey and printing the powder produced onto the stamps to give them a rough texture.
On the same web page was this beautiful definitive set from 2009, featuring wonderfully photographed Guernsey seascapes. The photographer was Dan Edmunds and the shots were not computer-enhanced and were the result of great diligence and patience on the photographer’s behalf.
