Guildford continues to be a popular
location for ‘PhotoWalks’ with three routes now established and a fourth in the
planning stage. The town centre offers many opportunities to look at and
photograph interesting buildings and features. Things that you might give a
second look at such as phone boxes.
My attention has recently been brought to
the 3 telephone kiosks in the centre of the town, 2 at the rear of Tunsgate Arch
and 1 outside Holy Trinity Church in the High Street. These are all K6 versions
of the GPO telephone kiosk and all 3 are listed by English Heritage Grade 11.
The K6 kiosk was designed for the GPO by
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935 and became the standard for phone boxes until
1968, over 60,000 were produced with around 11,000 remaining after British
Telephone had a cull, of these survivors 2,260 are currently listed.
BT admits that many phone boxes are now
losing money and that cleaning/maintenance has been cut back accordingly. There
was an interesting article in the Evening Standard of 27th January
2012 which highlighted the plight of many London boxes and I have seen the poor
condition many of them are in.
The
phone boxes in the centre of Guildford are in need of a clean and new coat of
paint but look to be in working order. But how long will it be before BT decide
to take them out of commission?
In other places many boxes have been
removed and in the past gone for scrap, nowadays they are on sale for over £3,000.
Some communities have adopted their local redundant kiosk and now look after it
turning them into information points and even libraries or shops!
