(first posted 10/9/2015) Twentieth century Britain has produced some wonderful buildings by some great architects, who by the nature of their trade, have their names appended to a wide range of buildings, locations and dates. One of the best known of these was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who designed among other buildings, the Anglican Cathedral of Liverpool, Battersea Power Station and Waterloo Bridge in London – all great buildings with local and national recognition – but he is perhaps best associated with the definitive British red telephone box, known officially as the K6.
K6 stands for Kiosk, type 6, and it was commissioned by the General Post Office (GPO) in 1935. Britain had had a centralised and unified telephone system since 1912, when the last of independent companies was amalgamated into the GPO. The only areas outside this were the Channel Island sof Jersey and Guernsey, and the city of Kingston upon Hull (better known as Hull) which remained with their own municipal organisations.
The first standardised kiosk,known as the K1, was built in 1921 but take up was slow, partly due to expense, and partly due a perception of a lack of demand.
K1 and K2 type kiosks
The GPO responded in 1922 by asking Gilbert Scott to design a replacement standard kiosk. This was a quite an innovative approach at the time, rather like asking, say, Norman Foster now, compared with relying on the in-house skills of the Post Office.
Gilbert Scott rose to the challenge and responded magnificently by designing the K2 kiosk. Visually, this looks similar to the famous K6; it’s a bit like looking at a BMW 5 series and then at a 3 series, although they have a different window pattern.
Around 1500 K2 kiosks were produced and it was used only in London; it was built of cast iron and weighed in at about a ton.
Outside London, the Post Office used Gilbert Scott’s K3 kiosk, visually similar but built in concrete and painted cream with red frames on the glazing. There were issues with the K3, notably ease of transport and erection without damage to the relatively brittle concrete, and weathering. Very few survive, and those that do are officially classified as listed buildings, which directs that they be preserved and limits what may done to them.
In 1935, King George V celebrated his silver jubilee, and the Post Office commissioned Gilbert Scott to design another new kiosk to mark the anniversary, and planned that it be used nationwide, to be Britain’s national telephone kiosk.
Gilbert Scott again met the challenge, and the timeless K6 kiosk was born. The material chosen reverted to cast iron, and the kiosk was built in sections, bolted together and set on a concrete base. The door was made of teak, and was painted to match the cast iron and had the same window pattern. Alomst always, the box was red with a balck band at the base to match the GPO’s mail boxes, though in some areas black and grey were used and in some remote rural areas green was also used. Gilbert Scott disapproved of the red, preferring silver for urban areas and dove grey in rural aras.
This glazing pattern, on three sides only obviously, is something that I suggest identifies the K6 as being a piece of work from a leading practitioner at the height of his trade. The layout was not the simple six panes by three seen on the earlier kiosks but the distinctive eight rows of three panes (almost always perspex, not glass, for obvious reasons), with a larger central pane, in an almost art-deco way. Simple, but effective at creating a design that was stylish, modern and timeless with a suggestion of formality and permanence.
The Post Office installed a total of over 60,000 right across Britain, from 1935 to the late 1960s, and even now around 11,000 remain in service, if not in much use. As the chosen kiosk from the monopoly provider, it was the only type built for over thirty years. By the 1940s, every British village will have had one (at least) and many others were found in seemingly unusual and unexpected places as well. Truly, this has become an icon of Britain.
In the 1960s, there was an attempt to update the design, with a kiosk known as the K8. If you consider the Routemaster with its distinctive appearance as the definitive London double decker, then the K8 is the equivalent of the rather faceless rear engine buses that were expected to replace it. Maybe, it even shares some of their styling cues. But the rear engined buses didn’t replace the Routemaster as the bus understood from the statement “red London bus” and the K8 isn’t recognised as a “British phone box” either.
The phones inside the kiosks changed, from coin operated equipment using shillings, sixpences, and pennies, to phones accepting the 1971 decimal currency and, of course, later phone cards and debit cards. But the principle always remained – available to all for a standard rate. And everyone will remember at least one call from a phone box to someone special.
Like a red car, the red paint on the kiosk fades over time, and periodic maintenance and repair is a definite issue. Inevitably, with the growth of domestic phone ownership in the 1950s and now the almost universal ownership of mobile (cellular) phones, the number of public phones has dropped, and many K6 kiosks have been removed for scrap.
Usgae has dropped by 80% in five years and last year, another 1500 were decommsioned, although local authorty approval is required to remove one unless there is another within 400 metres, even if it is one of the many thousands in rural locations that get used only once a month. Some have re-appeared, as phone boxes or garden ornaments and everything in between, just about everywhere in the world. The GPO is no longer with us though – the phone network was separated in the 1970s and sold off by the Govrnment in 1984 as British Telecomunications plc (now known as BT) in 1984.
Around 20% of the 11,000 remaining K6 kiosks have been designated as having listed building status, which directs that they cannot be removed or substantially changed.
Many communities are finding alternative uses for them, from information kisoks to a storage area for a defribulator. In my area, there is a trend for putting some shelves in them and creating a free to all community library. Leave your unwanted books there, and borrow one left by another. Read, return and repeat.
Neat, and better than being abandoned. One was even converted to a very small, one night only pub, named the Dog and Bone, which, if you know Cockney rhyming slang, is phone.
And Gilbert Scott – like many architects his name is attached to a wide range of buildings, ranging from the K6 kiosk to the rebuilding of the House of Commons chamber in the Palace of Westminster after World War 2; perhaps the two buildings which most represent Britain to the world.
I remember visiting England several years ago, 2006, if I remember correctly. Even with mobile phone use, I still saw a lot of these red phone booths here and there throughout Britain. I don’t believe that they should be destroyed. If they can no longer be used as a telephone booth, I’d think there would be other uses. 🙂
Sadly most are used as toilets by scrotes coming home from the pub
Thank you for the history lesson.
A family down the street had a K6 in their backyard for many years. It always caught my attention when I’d drive or walk by. Never had the chance to ask how they acquired it and who would have brought it to Canada.
Concrete? What were they thinking? If iron was expensive, I’d think of wood clad with sheet metal, but never concrete for such narrow columns.
Glad you mentioned the Routemaster double-decker bus as a British icon – that’s what came to mind when I saw the phone booth. Add the black London taxi too.
One area in which GB and the US had distinctly different tastes. As an American, there is something charming and permanent about the cast iron and wood structure. Our aluminum one with the folding door and the later box mostly exposed to the elements pale in comparison.
The payphone is becoming pretty rare on this side of the Atlantic as well.
Doctor!?
If you mean Tardis, that’s a Police Box. It was originally an American invention, but of course the Brits got more sentimental mileage out of theirs.
The British Post Office evidently was a reservoir of talent, sort of like Bell Labs, for the cryptographic Colossus computer was another design by one of its staff.
I also associate these with the time that Hyacinth was trying to pressure a man to let her use the phone box when Richard got out of the car and, in a rare display of assertion, demanded that she get back in the car.
Quite a moment, that. Right up there with Edith Bunker telling Archie to”stifle!”.
The mini-library usage is brilliant!
I thought so to. Unfortunately, in America, most all would no doubt be vandalized in one week if not in a small rural area.
I’m happy to note that here in SoCal, Bart’s Books in Ojai has a section of books on display outside the store that can be bought through the honor system. Agree that it wouldn’t work in the big city.
http://www.bartsbooksojai.com/about/
No ;
Little yard edge libraries are popping up all over Southern California , so far I’ve not heard of one being vandalized .
I’ve even borrowed a book from one , I need to find an empty one so I can get rid of many books .
I’d think there would be a market for decommissioned telephone boxes from England , I see them here and there all over America , they’re popular .
-Nate
One would think that if one would be vandalized anywhere, it would happen here (around Flint, MI). However, there are a few around here, and they seem to be thriving. Here is an article on one in a neighborhood in Flint’s West Side:
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/flint/index.ssf/2012/06/little_library_draws_neighbors.html
There’s a mini-library outside the school in my town, but it’s in a purpose-built weatherproof structure designed and built by the local Men’s Shed. Being a bookworm, I usually check it about once a week. Seems to be a fair turnover of titles, though I’ve only ever found one to interest me. Thanks for showing us what this one had in stock.
We had very similar phone boxes here typical copying really, I say had because I’m trying to remember when I last saw a phone box at all never mind what style it was.
We need a similar article on the Police Call Box!
Great article Roger. Personal connection with the phone boxes, apart from using them, is that my grandfather was a foundry man at Saracen Foundry, one of the six foundries making the boxes.
Alistair
I frequently pass one in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands, just mountains in the background. It says “phone, email, text” where others would say “telephone”.
I read once that the ex F1 driver Jan Lammers bought one to use as a shower cubicle, and only when it arrived did he realise how heavy it was. I think he said even if he could have got it into his bathroom it would have gone through the floor.
PS – might want to change “Britian” to “Britain” in the title.
Thanks – spell checker shot!
Couple years ago we visited Canada. This was in Peggy’s Cove and the wife was so taken that we had to get a picture.
That’s exactly the appeal of these things
The photos in front of the stone wall… Where were they taken? Those look like flint stones and if so might have been around east Cambridgeshire? Unfortunately, many of these booths that I ran across in London a year ago had a multitude of graphic porno ads stuck on the walls… Made me afraid to touch anything….
Hi,
the photos you refer to were taken in Foxton just south of Cambridge.Flint walls are common across a lot of southeast and eastern England
There’s a K6 on the grounds of Sheridan’s Pub in Tomkins Cove, NY. One use of this model kiosk that brings a smile to Americans of a certain age is in the last scene of “Local Hero”, a 1983 movie you should find and watch. A K6 is a bright red spot in the Scottish town where the movie is set, and becomes a symbol of love and hope for an American oil executive who realizes what will be lost if he convinces the townsfolk to allow their beach to become the site of a refinery.
His change of heart is evident in the lovely final scene, underscored by Mark Knopfler’s wonderful theme.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=last+scene+in+local+hero&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=9C975977F5B4B6297D0D9C975977F5B4B6297D0D
Yes I’ll second that! Local Hero is a wonderful film, one of my favorites.
Local hero is GREAT. One of my favorite films.
That is an excellent movie with great music! I went to see it at the movie theatre with fiddler Johnny Cunningham of the Scottish trad band Silly Wizard. He personally knew lots of the cast and said the Ceilidh (dance) scene was 100% accurate. Great soundtrack. Mark Knopfler’s song “Going Home” is now played by Newcastle United FC and Aberdeen FC at the beginning of games as the team runs on the field.
There’s a K6 box on the fourth floor of Schlumberger’s (oilfield services) Enclave Parkway office in Houston. No, I have no idea why it’s there.
At the age of 18 I spent a very uncomfortable 4 hours trying to sleep in a red phone box in Newquay, Cornwall. I’d been hitchhiking to meet up with some friends at a caravan (trailer) park, and arrived at 3 am in the rain without a clue what caravan they were in. I tried just sitting down with my knees up against my chest (legs cramped after a while), then half lying on my back with my legs stretched upwards against the glass (even less comfortable). I can’t look at a red phone box without remembering that night.
John Cleese makes a phone call, from the film “Clockwise”. You couldn’t always rely on the phones themselves.
Great story, Roger. One of the items that completely disappeared from the landscape in an eyeblink. A telefooncel, that’s how we called it. Not quite the same as a cell phone.
I believe there is a K6 phone box around 18th and Market Sts in Philadelphia, out front of the Elephant and Castle restaurant. I never realized they were cast iron until I saw this one up close, I was surprised. Unfortunately it was locked and two windows were busted out, so it was starting to fill with trash.
Another super post, Roger. I love the idea of reusing decommissioned ones as a free, community library!
Um, shouldn’t this be titled as a Kerbside Classic?
+1
Roger mentions that British Telecom was separated from the GPO, and then sold into the private sector in the 1980s. One forgotten side-effect of this sale was that other companies were permitted to enter into what had hitherto been a monopoly market. Mercury Telecommunications was formed, and started to erect their own post-modernist kiosks across the country. Unlike the red phone boxes, they didn’t accept cash; only credit cards or Mercury phone cards. Unsurprisingly, this was not a recipe for success. The design has not aged well, and nor did Mercury; and once cellphones started to take off at the end of the decade, these short-lived kiosks disappeared quickly from the scene.
Sorry, missed off the photo – here it is:
I can’t believe that these would be scrapped, surely there would be a more lucrative market for them?
Localy Telstra is still required to maintain public phones as the former government telephone entity, and in the last couple of years has been replacing or upgrading a lot of old units to provide wifi hotspots for their customers.
I think Dinky or Corgi made a diecast model of these as well
Anyone want to start on eth AA and RAC phone boxes? I know of one (a bright yellow AA box) still in use.
Most K6s were replaced (before the whole type were awarded listed status) with 80s 90s “KX series” booths. Certainly more the K8 that Roger mentions in the article.
I distinctly remember as a kid watching them winch the old K6 from the Yorkshire village where I grew up onto the back of a truck, leaving a soul-less (and draughty!) KX300 in its place.
It seems almost impossible to find photos of any of those KX boxes in their original yellow livery with the “good” BT logo (BT reverted to “traditional” red in the early 90s to appeal to perceived British conservatism, along with ditching their excellent dotted T logo for a lame prancing bugler) but there are a couple of shots at:
http://www.britishtelephones.com/kxkiosk.htm
best among them below: a side-by-side pair of KX100, a “regular” yellow one and the dreaded green phonecard variant familiar to anyone who grew up in 80s Britain… except that (outside marketing bumpf like such as the photo is evidently from) the green box was invariably the *only* empty one in a group, because nobody ever had cards for them
Back on topic. Here in Edinburgh there are still plenty of the dear old K6s almost all in great condition apart from the poor battered one at the foot of Castle Terrace which always seems to get its door hinge smashed. Most of them get regular use… as photo-booths for tourists 😉
footnote: for anyone interested in the design and history of British kiosks this place is excellent:
http://www.the-telephone-box.co.uk/kiosks/
We had something similar in Australia when I was a kid, but with the earlier K2 style glazing pattern. Ours had real glass, though Perspex would have been a better idea. Never gave a thought to what the box was actually made of, nor noticed the roof style, but I’m sure it didn’t have those fancy lower mouldings of the K2. They were replaced by glass and steel enclosures whose parallelogram hinges often trapped the unwary inside!
You will probably still be able to get the tea tin/bank kind for a long time even if the real ones are gone.
Now that I’m an expert (that website is really good) I see that by the window pattern it’s a 1924 K2, although the date on the front side shown on the one on the right is 1929, which would be the concrete K3. But it’s red and has the K2 style lower door molding.
Profits on that major tourist purchase went to Salisbury Cathedral.
There used to be one of the in front of Lindenhurst Village Hall at Lindenhurst, NY. 430 South Wellwood Ave. Shows on Google Maps up to 2007. WW1 Gatling gun on display several blocks south.
I once saw one of these outside a British-style pub in the Marina del Rey district of Los Angeles ca. 1978. It was no more incongruous than London Bridge being in Lake Havasu City, Arizona!
With the rise of cell phones, they may or may not still have a lot of these at British-style pubs in the colonies. I haven’t been to a British-style pub in quite a few years.
Am I right, Giles Gilbert Scott was responsible for one of the images of Queen Elizabeth II on British stamps or coins?
They usually smelled “strange” inside – sometimes you had to hold the door open with your leg to prevent asphyxia !
Us Yanks can be strange ~ we were adamant to not be a British Colony but seem to love old crap England wants rid of .
There used to be a restaurant in Studio City that was made out of old British railway station parts….
Quaint .
Those red telephone boxes, double decker buses and Austin taxis litter the U.S.A. .
-Nate
Since this article appeared, most telephone boxes have disappeared in cities but are alive and well as free book sharing libraries or equipped with defibrillators in many towns and villages. During the Pandemic, the book sharing really took off. They have a long life left in the community.
Let us not forget that even your favorite superheroes use these telephone booths, (snicker, snicker), Sorry, folks, I could not resist.