Rose Hill Red Phone Box

You will no doubt all have seen the K6 red phone box on Rose Hill near the Halfway House. It is a useful landmark for giving directions to those living near it, but it is not in working order and suffers from neglect.

BT have announced that they will be soon removing the Rose Hill Phone Box as it is now redundant and as part of their Adopt A Kiosk Scheme  we as a parish have to decide if we want to adopt it at a cost of £1. We would then 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.

When British Telecom was created in 1984 as a privatised concern it announced a “£160 million modernisation for Britain’s pay phones” to make them suitable for the 21st century. The Thirties Society, now called the 20th Century Society, started a campaign to protect what remaining phone boxes were left. As the Department of the Environment declined to change the conservation legislation to encompass street furniture the only solution was to press for the statutory listing of kiosks as miniature buildings. This the DoE eventually agreed to do and, on 6th August 1986, Lord Elton, Minister of State for the Environment, formally listed a kiosk which stood outside the Parrot House at London Zoo. This was a rare example of a K3 constructed of reinforced concrete (examples of which are still to be found in Portugal). Today the majority of listed kiosks, more than 90%, are K6 variants.

The K6 kiosk is identified as Britain’s red Telephone Box; in fact eight kiosk types were introduced by the General Post Office between 1926 and 1983. The K6 was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V in 1935. Some 60,000 examples were installed across Britain, which is why the K6 has come to represent the red Telephone Box. Only 11,000 K6s remain and they are the most visible examples of the eight kiosk types.

We would like to know your views or opinions on whether we should as a parish adopt the phone box. Please have your say in the comments or if you wish to remain anonymous please email the webmaster and they will pass on your comments without your name and email address. The deadline for comments is February 2nd.

Click here for examples of re-purposed telephone boxes.