Kiosk fans who’ve got one on hold
Mobile tech makes red phone boxes obsolete –but iconic street furniture is kept going by communities
A SYMBOL of British tradition in cherry red, the classic phone box has long been a feature of the nation’s streets.
Now, amid advances in technology, it emerges there are more in Yorkshire that have been adopted than remain in active use.
Across Yorkshire, 410 phone boxes have now been taken over and transformed, into libraries, art galleries, museums and stores, with just 401 still traditionally taking calls.
As neighbours have rallied around the adoption cause over recent years, they say its symbol still stands at the heart of communities.
“This is a part of our heritage,” said Holly Jones, in Harrogate, who is seeking to transform the area’s phone box into a library with backing of the Oatlands Community Association. “Adopting it will be of benefit to the whole community.”
The number of calls made from public telephone boxes has fallen by 90 per cent in a decade, BT says, as rising numbers of people use a mobile phone.
When it comes to adoptions, villagers in Marton cum Grafton were the pioneers, opening the first mini-library in 2010 with many more communities following suit.
In Stutton near Tadcaster, the decommissioned box was converted into a Christmas card last year, passing on festive messages to neighbours and friends. There is an art gallery in Settle, while York’s oldest phone box on Duncombe Place now houses a defibrillator.
The traditional red phone box is a K6 kiosk, one of eight styles introduced by the General Post Office between 1926 and 1983.
It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V in 1935, with some 60,000 installed.
The phone box in Oatlands had started its journey to a library over two years ago, and now neighbours are looking to make it official with planning permissions submitted.
“We’re really interested in the community aspect, giving our area a focal point,” said fellow adoptee and neighbour Jane Kennerley. “We haven’t got a village green. We’re really grateful that it’s available to us, and isn’t being sold off for someone’s back garden. It’s a lovely feature in our community.”
In Scarborough, the seafront’s last red box was adopted last year, transformed into what may be the world’s smallest heritage centre for tourists to visit.
There are black and white photographs of the port’s seafaring and shipbuilding past, and an audio-commentary which talks visitors through its history.
“There isn’t a museum in Scarborough, but I think people are quite interested in the history of the town and how it came to be,” said Mark Vesey, chairman of the Maritime Heritage Centre. “A lot of people know Scarborough as a seaside resort, but it started as a shipbuilding port. There is a lot of history here.”
The traditional red box is disappearing from the street scene, Mr Vesey says, and the prospect of those warning pips as the pennies ran out is now an alien concept to today’s generation.
“We took them for granted,” he added. “They do hark back to the past, really. But much like London’s buses, the red phone box is iconically British.”
They do hark back to the past. The phone box is iconically British.
Mark Vasey, Scarborough Maritime and Heritage Centre.