Phone boxes and pubs top preservation wish list

NOSTALGIA for telephone boxes and pubs has seen them become Britons’ top priority for urgent preservation, Historic England figures have revealed.

Both pubs and phone boxes on the cusp of being demolished or having major alterations top the public’s preservation wish list, with 39 listing requests being made between 2016 and 2019, according to data sourced from a freedom of information request.

However, despite the requests for listing, which would help make sure they are preserved, none of them were given listed status.

All the requests submitted for pubs and telephone boxes were of the urgent category, meaning they were “submitted as a result of plans being made to make a major alteration or demolition of the site imminently”.

The other category for requests is “normal”, those made to preserve historical buildings.

Examples of this include the Philharmonic Dining Rooms in Liverpool, the first purpose-built Victorian pub in England, which was upgraded from Grade II* to Grade I status last month.

More than half of the urgent requests coming in for telephone boxes were for ones located in Devon.

Historic England confirmed that 3,200 of Britain’s red telephone box the K6 have been protected, but said it was unlikely that it would be listing any more. Lodgings, farms and restaurants were next on the list of urgent requests for achieving listed status.

The data come after an estimated 14 pubs a week closed in 2019.