Telephone boxes

The rise and fall of the telephone box

BT is responding to this changing situation by disconnecting the phones and removing the boxes. Currently a public consultation is underway over the future of 20 payphones in the Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council area, 13 of which have had an average of less than one call a month over the last year. Only 5 have averaged more than 1 call a week.

Two of the boxes are in Groby and Field Head. The box near the Leicester bound bus stop on the A50 near Wallace Drive recorded just 11 calls. The other, at Ratby Lane in Field Head, had no use at all.

Two options for the boxes

There are two options in such circumstances – to allow BT to remove the kiosk or for the local community to adopt it. In a small rural village adoption may seem an attractive proposition but less so in urban fringes such as Groby and Field Head, particularly on such a busy road such as the A50. At the November Parish Council meeting members decided not to adopt the Markfield Road box and will no doubt make a similar decision about Ratby Lane.

The BT Adopt a Kiosk scheme enables communities to take over the box for £1, but there will be no phone line to it. Surprisingly by April 2018 more than 4000 communities have taken advantage of the offer and BT estimate there are still around 8000 red phone boxes which can be adopted, which many find more iconic and attractive than our local, more modern looking, boxes. The adopting community will be responsible for all support and maintenance of the kiosk and for any liability resulting from the kiosk or its use following completion of the transfer. Communities must accept the phone box as it is, with any physical defects.

The Community Heartbeat Trust has installed defibrillators in disused phone boxes across the country, which can be of greatest value to more isolated communities. “With something as serious as a cardiac arrest, time is of the essence. Unfortunately, ambulance services often can’t reach country villages in time,” explained a Trust spokesperson.

In Brighton, Eddie Ottewell and Steve Beeken have launched Red Box Coffee, selling hot drinks and ice cream out of the two boxes that they’ve adopted. They started the ‘Thinking Outside the Box’ charitable trust to bring new life to phone boxes whose use has declined. The Trust has lodged planning applications with other UK local authorities to transform kiosks into cafes, mini-shops, and shoe-shine stands. In another initiative ten red phone boxes have been transformed into miniature art galleries, showcasing the work of local artists in Cheltenham.

But in terms of 'thinking outside the box' there can be little to beat the use made by Benedetto Bufalino, a French artist who filled a phone box with water and turned it into an aquarium full of exotic fish for the Durham and London Lumieres.

A case of trial and several errors

As a feature of modern life the roadside telephone kiosk had a longer life than more recent innovations such as the VHS or Betamax video recorders. It was in the early 1900's that telephone kiosks started to appear, many were commonly inside shops and other public places. Street kiosks were many different designs, and it was not until 1921 that the 'K1', the first standard kiosk, appeared. In some cases, modifications were made to boxes and Eastbourne had two with thatched roofs.

In 1923, the GPO held a competition to design a new kiosk. It was 1926 when the chosen design appeared, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's K2, which had a domed roof but was too big and too expensive for mass production, so a variation of the K1was introduced in 1927. The GPO asked Sir Giles to produce another design, a smaller concrete version of his K2, but cheap concrete proved a problem and the boxes started to crack so only a handful survive. One of the kiosk variations introduced in 1927 was intended to be a 24 hour post office with a stamp machine and letter box added to the back. It was also a failure and only 50 were produced.

By the mid 1930's the design and construction of the boxes was being refined and the K6 appeared with all the good points - it was considered to be solid, small and elegant. By the end of production there were nearly 70,000 in Britain, some painted in alternative colour schemes. This is what most would recognise as the traditional red box.

The 1960's brought changes in many aspects of life, including telephone boxes. A new design made in aluminium was tested in 1962 but only 5 were made. It did, however,mark the end of the familiar red box and led to boxes without glazing bars, 1 big window on each side of the kiosk and a much flatter roof.

More information

The consultation which will decide the fate of the kiosks included in the current review ends on January 4^th 2017. If you want to know more about the scheme just Google BT Adopt a Kiosk. The information on the history of phone boxes is from www.redphonebox.info. The photograph of Benedetto Bufalino's phone box aquarium at the Durham Lumiere was provided by the Newcastle Chronicle.