The Inescapable Melancholy Of Phone Boxes
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Red phone boxes are a cherished feature of my personal landscape because, in my childhood, we never had a telephone at home and, when I first made a phone call at the age of fifteen, it was from a box. In fact, for the major part of my life, all my calls were made from boxes – thus telephone calls and phone boxes were synonymous for me. I grew up with the understanding that you went out to make a phone call just as you went out to post a letter.
Yet the culture of mobile phones is now so pervasive I was shocked to discover I had hardly noticed as the red telephone boxes have vanished from our streets and those few that remain stand redundant and unused. So I set out with my camera to photograph the last of them, lest they should disappear without anybody noticing. It was a curious and lonely pilgrimage because, whereas they were once on every street, they have now almost all gone and I had to walk miles to find enough specimens to photograph.
Reluctantly, I must reveal that on my pitiful quest in search of phone boxes, I never saw anyone use one though I did witnessed the absurd spectacle of callers standing beside boxes to make calls on their mobiles several times. The door has fallen off the one in Spitalfields, which is perhaps for the best as it has been co-opted into service as a public toilet while the actual public toilet nearby is shut.
Although I must confess I have not used one myself for years, I still appreciate phone boxes as fond locations of emotional memory where I once experienced joy and grief at life-changing news delivered down the line. But like the horse troughs that accompany them on Clerkenwell Green and outside Christ Church, Spitalfields, phone boxes are now vestiges of a time that has passed forever. I imagine children must ask their mothers what these quaint red boxes are for.
The last phone boxes still stand proud in their red livery but like sad clowns they are weeping inside. Along with pumps, milestones, mounting blocks and porters’ rests these redundant pieces of street furniture serve now merely as arcane reminders of a lost age – except that era was the greater part of my life. This is the inescapable melancholy of phone boxes.
Ignored in Whitechapel
Abandoned in Whitechapel
Rejected in Bow
Abused in Spitalfields
Irrelevant in Bethnal Green
Shunned in Bethnal Green
Empty outside York Hall
Desolate in Hackney Rd
Pointless in St John’s Sq
Irrelevant on Clerkenwell Green
Invisible in Smithfield
Forgotten outside St Bartholomew’s Hospital
In service outside St Paul’s as a quaint location for tourist shots
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2 more outside the entrance of the Rotherhithe tunnel – commercial rd / limehouse dlr exit
Thank you so much, dear Gentle Author, for your poetic swan song on these lovable public gems adorning the streets of London! Their bright red colour is as attractive and eye-catching as the old mail boxes and former busses, landmarks as typical for London as the Eiffel Tower for Paris. Over the years I took many miniature toy phone boxes back home to Berlin as cute souvenirs for myself and friends. So wise to attract attention to traditional objects of public life we have always taken for granted, now slowly disappearing from our urban culture.
As someone from another country, I find it amazing that London still has phone boxes at all. Ours have been gone for decades now. In all honesty they were hideous around here and I doubt anyone regrets them, but we’ve also lost something in the process.
Along with post boxes, I love the sight of telephone boxes on our streets. In conservation terms, I believe they are referred to as heritage street furniture. I’m sure the GA knows all about their design by Gilbert Scott inspired by the tomb of Sir John Soane. There is a mix of K2s and K6s in these photos. The K2 has the evenly spaced glazing bars and is slightly larger, these are all Grade II listed. The K6, redesigned in the 30s I believe, have no automatic protection unless in a Conservation Area or within the curtilage of a listed building.
It’s really striking how in rural areas, old phone boxes are repurposed often, as book exchanges or homes for defibrillators, whereas in urban settings, they are forgotten and allowed to pass into insignificance. I’m sure some creative person could find a use for them.
But not “tilted” in Kingston, eh?
Great photos!
We also did not have a home telephone until after I had left school so would use the public box round in the next road (4d in the box then I think and press buttons A and B!).
I often wonder if any of the remaining red telephone boxes actually work, I think the main reason some of them are still about in Central London is that tourists love to take photos of themselves and their friends standing by or hanging out of the box.
These old phone boxes must hold many a secret & memories of momentous events in our lives – funny how we do not notice them until they’re gone..?
Many rural phone boxes have found a new use as free book exchange points, and/or to house defibrillators. I wonder why doesn’t this happen in London.
Out in the countryside and here in Devon many, many telephone boxes are being converted, mostly to defibrilators, but also museums, libraries, veg shops after being beautifully repainted and restored. Our small town has two. Both teetered on the brink of removal, they had become terrible eyesores , but locals got together and did the work. I feel certain it is not very easy at all for a Great City like London to do community action as we have done. The boxes you have photographed seem well cared for externally. They need the same help the London Cab drivers restaurants have, which seems to be keeping them used and relevant. Thank you for your wonderful reports on the city I love. Deborah
The one in our village is listed and so BT have, reluctantly, to maintain it.
When all the phone boxes have gone, how will one find a “Swedish Massage” expert?!
I am surprised that nobody uses them as free bookshops like is done in The Netherlands and Germany; I regularly bring books there and people enjoy the bookexchange.