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The Phone Box

The Basics

The red telephone box has long been such a fondly regarded feature of our landscape that BT’s decision to decommission it was met with wailing and lamentation throughout the land. No mere post with a phone attached, the box was a solid edifice, somewhere in which making a phonecall was something of an occasion.

phone box silhouette
Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott produced his original design for the phonebox in the 1920s, winning a competition organised by the Post Office. The model most of us are familiar with was actually the sixth incarnation of the phone kiosk (K6), introduced in 1936. Its elegantly domed roof, elaborate glazing and imposing black coinbox are widely considered a design icon, by many of our overseas visitors as well as our sentimental selves.

Seeing them carted off to the scrapyard was a provocation too far in a world of dizzyingly rapid change, and enough of us made our feelings on the subject known to BT to persuade them to renovate some of the dear old K6s. At Kersall in Nottinghamshire, they know how to treat their phone box - putting fresh flowers in it most days and garlanding it with fairy-lights at Christmas.