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Where are all the UK red telephone kiosks?
- phyzix5761 5mo agoNice! Would be great if this had a map view as well.
- vages 5mo agoCheck the split by regions: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/where-are-all-the-boxes/ https://www.thek6project.co.uk/where-are-all-the-boxes/
- phyzix5761 5mo agoLove it!
- nailer 5mo agoThere's one near the Houses of Parliament, tourists often shoot photos there, and are surprised when the inside is filled with stickers advertising prostitutes. https://maps.app.goo.gl/zLRxTFUXErcsrkCi7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/zLRxTFUXErcsrkCi7
- muglug 5mo agoTo be fair, that's the authentic London telephone box experience of old.
- varispeed 5mo agoI think the actual experience was stepping into human poo, needles and overwhelming stench of piss and let's not go into why the telephone was sticky.
- nephihaha 5mo agoThose are the urban ones. The ones in the countryside were useful sometimes if you were trying to get a taxi or a lift. They often had plants growing in them.
- alexfoo 5mo agoAnd some were in very remote locations. The Nant y Maen phonebox in Wales springs to mind although I think it no longer has a working phone in it.
- nephihaha 5mo agoSome of them were indeed. They were very handy in pre-mobile phone days for when your car broke down, or you had to contact someone.
- alexfoo 5mo agoSomeone pushed them all over: https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxcGDAc8Dv924zkv8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxcGDAc8Dv924zkv8 (It's art: https://secretldn.com/telephone-box-installation-kingston/ https://secretldn.com/telephone-box-installation-kingston/)
- ktallett 5mo agoWithout even looking I assume this is the art installation in Kingston Upon Thames (a lovely town outside London, and next to Hampton Court). I remember this from childhood as I used to get my haircut opposite these phone boxes and regularly shopped with my nan at the Wilkinson's on the corner (an everything shop like a small Walmart).
- n4r9 5mo agoWilkinson's is no longer there. Replaced by an arcade style venue called Urban Fun, I think. Many Kingstoners probably think of themselves as being in London. There's some graffiti on the way in to London on the A3 that says "Surrey not Surrey".
- ktallett 5mo agoGuess that makes sense assuming the cinema is still round the corner. I miss the days of the CEX store when it sold import games just round the corner as well. Considering you have to travel through New Malden, Raynes Park (which for me is the border), and Norbiton to get to London, they would be wrong. I always assume many think like that as it potentially increases house prices but just having a TFL tap and go bus doesn't make somewhere London.
- n4r9 4mo agoAmazingly CEX is still there, next to KFC. Odeon is still there at the top of the Rotunda. There's also now a Curzon cinema at the top of the Bentall centre. New Malden, Raynes Park, Norbiton all in London in my mind, and their Wikipedia pages concur for what it's worth.
- davnicwil 5mo agoI was just thinking how it'd be great if there were newer, modern things like this that had sprung up in response to newer technologies. I guess it's one downside of dematerialisation with digital tech - I can't think of a single thing that would make sense. Everyone's got their own virtual portal to all the new technologies that come out, there's not much to look at out in the world. Maybe as more progress happens in physical 'world of atoms' type things we'll see a bit of this come back.
- arximboldi 5mo agoAs someone that tries to survive (every day more difficult) with just a dumbphone with me, I just fantasized about a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone. Perhaps you tap a card, and it picks your accounts, and you can quickly Whatsapp someone, check your email, call an Uber or use Google Maps (maybe even check hacker news, but with time limit?!) Maybe then many people would stop carrying their own portals, as you can briefly use the public ones for the one-off situation where you need it, but enjoy a portal-free mind the rest of the time. Also quite useful in case emergencies as it seems those portable-portals tend to run out of battery, or get lost or damaged...
- xp84 5mo agoThere was a brief moment around the turn of the millennium where that was what some of us were expecting. I was in college just after that and there were some free Internet kiosks, which combined with the ubiquitous free-to-use computer labs on campus, did a pretty good job of making this type of lifestyle possible, to the extent you could store your important documents online (much harder though in a pre-Dropbox, pre-Google Docs world!). Or another thing that was a big trend then was Portable Apps. On a flash drive on your keychain, you'd have installs of apps that you needed, together with their data and whatever documents you might need.
- wrs 5mo agoThere was a brief period before that where some airports had pay phones with text terminals and modems built in, so you could dial up your corporate email or CompuServe. I swear I did not dream this.
- davedevelopment 5mo agoThe ones in Hull are all cream coloured: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2023/07/13/hull-university-east-riding-hu6-7rs-kiosk-1/ https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2023/07/13/hull-university-ea... The crowns are also ground off I think
- alexchamberlain 5mo agohttps://www.kcom.com/about-us/history/ https://www.kcom.com/about-us/history/ they were operated by a separate company, so the crown wasn't appropriate.
- Jenk 5mo agohttps://www.thek6project.co.uk/the-crowns-on-k6-telephone-boxes/ https://www.thek6project.co.uk/the-crowns-on-k6-telephone-bo... there's a note about Hull's phone boxes at the bottom of this page.
- Kaibeezy 5mo agoIf curious why I posted this: - someone told me about a fish—n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland - I told my team, one of them asked “just fish?” - I replied “batter fried pizza too” - one of them made the inevitable comment about defibrillators - I pointed out many of these red kiosks have been repurposed to hold defibrillators and went looking for images
- dijksterhuis 5mo ago> someone told me about a fish-n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland if it’s the fish and chip shop (buffet is a different thing here), i’ve been there and they do a banging fish supper.
- tonylucas 5mo agoI think OP is referring to this https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet which does appear to be a fish-n-chip buffet of sorts (amongst other things) which has been in various tabloid newspapers in the last month or so.
- Kaibeezy 5mo agoThe Bellrock lunch buffet, £15 weekdays. “3 courses including Soup, Pizzas, Haddock, Spicy Fish, White pudding, King Rib, Chefs dish of the day. Hot desserts with Custard, Cold desserts i.e trifle and cakes, Cold Meats, Pasta, Salad, Whippy Ice cream.” https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet
- dijksterhuis 5mo agoah i assumed it was a language thing. my bad. that’s on me. was a while ago i was up arbroath way. still, the fish and chips are banging.
- joezydeco 5mo agoThe box in Meols, Merseyside has been turned into a small museum honoring the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The box was their makeshift booking office in the early days and the box's number (6323003) was used in the song "Red Frame White Light" "To this day, it is still likely the highest-charting song entirely about a public phone box." https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2022/08/30/meols-merseyside-ch47-6ad/ https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2022/08/30/meols-merseyside-c... https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/omd-telephone-box https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/omd-telephone-box
- jamiek88 5mo agoI grew up on the Wirral and and moved to USA in my early twenties I’m nearly 50 now and that 632 3003 gave me absolute frisson mate, nice one.
- roebk 5mo agoI love seeing the occasional phone box in a quaint village which has been converted into a super compact library. It reminds me that community spirit and trust are alive.
- HarHarVeryFunny 5mo agoI grew up with these things, but they look so weird now, like a Tardis. I remember having fun as a kid placing a reverse charge call from one phone booth to another across the street. Apparently the operator didn't have a way of knowing the number you were asking to make a call to was a phone booth, so your buddy across the street answers the operators call and graciously agrees to accept the reverse charge call (which is then free - no need to put any money in).
- dwd 5mo agoThe few iconic blue police boxes that are left also need to be protected.
- GJim 5mo ago> Apparently the operator didn't have a way of knowing the number you were asking to make a call to was a phone booth, They did. In the UK, when a payphone _answered_ a call, the payphone played a "cuckoo" tone (beep-boop) for about ten seconds. This alerted the operator not to allow reverse charge calls. Of course in more recent yeas an operator probably hasn't a clue what the payphone cuckoo means, hence you getting away with it.
- HarHarVeryFunny 5mo agoI'm talking mid-late 1970's
- dbbk 5mo agoEverywhere?
- Self-Perfection 5mo agoHopefully this database is integrated with OpenStreetMap. OSM has extensive tagging scheme for phone booths: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dtelephone https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dtelephone
- indianbunghole 5mo ago[flagged]
- iamalizard 5mo agoThe connection has timed out The operation timed out when attempting to contact www.thek6project.co.uk.
- aussieguy1234 5mo agoHere in Australia, public payphones, instead of being removed were all made free. They provide a lifeline to women fleeing domestic abuse, who need to contact services without their phone being tracked. Also to homeless and other vulnerable people who may not have access to a phone. Statistics show lots of calls to emergency services, centrelink (Australia's welfare agency) etc...
- trebligdivad 5mo agoWasn't there a short period where they changed the colour? I'm thinking it was a beige thing - in the 80s???
- lawlorino 5mo agoThere was some trial where they painted <100 yellow, as part of some rebranding and privatisation of British Telecom. There was a public outcry and they reverted
- trebligdivad 5mo agoAh yes, that would be what I was thinking of; I think I saw one somewhere in Manchester as a kid.
- cosmobiosis 5mo agoI know a Kiosk seller in California. It's always pretty separate from telephony system. Not integrated at all.
- eszed 5mo agoBrowsing these made me unreasonably nostalgic.
- anthk 5mo agoIn Spain there is one in Artxanda, about literal 5 minutes from Bilbao by cable car. Take the cable car, literally turn right and walk a little, it's pretty much near the slope. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/cabina-inglesa-donde-menos-te-lo-esperas-artxanda-bilbao--385409680597982280/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/cabina-inglesa-donde-menos-te-...
- Stevvo 5mo agoIt's referred to as a "telephone box". Never heard anyone call it a Kiosk.
- lewispollard 5mo agoThe red phone box is a type of phone kiosk. The design of the phone box is designated as K1-K6, where the K stands for kiosk. I believe the term comes from the time before phone boxes were ubiquitous, and public phones were found in small buildings/rooms called kiosks.
- youngNed 5mo agonostalgia is a wonderful thing. Its actually not a wonderful thing, its a weird human condition that seems to have been converted into a psy-op by shady facebook accounts that have gone from posting 'who remembers white dog-shit and spangles' into AI generated pictures of london in various guises. Yes, i suppose i am saying 'nostalgia is not what it once was' go figure. But anyway. Phone boxes were shit. Often literally. Depending on where you were, they often stank of human waste of one form or another, and even in a time before fear of contagion, you were still reticent to hold that manky ear piece too close to your ear. The ones in london were plastered in pornography from the local people trafficers. A phone box was somewhere that you went as a last resort. Or, judging by the smell in most of them, if you needed a piss.
- wrboyce 5mo agoI would love refurbished one of these in my back garden, unfortunately they weigh far far too much to lift into my limited-access back garden and I’m not sure it’d have the same impact in the front garden. You can get a refurbished K6 for about £3000, absolute bargain if you ask me! https://www.x2connect.com/ https://www.x2connect.com/
- wolvoleo 5mo agoI've seen those back in the day during a visit to London but they were usually really dirty and completely plastered with adverts for escort services :) Not that I am against that kind of thing but it made it a bit low-rent. Ps the same ads were also constantly studded Do they want to preserve the real thing as it was or some glorified abstract of it? Of course one or two should remain but people don't use these anymore. If they all remained they would just be used as makeshift urinals and for addicts shooting up. In my own country we didn't have the ads (one can simply advertise such services in the paper) but we did have torn phonebooks, smokey booths and often destroyed phones.
- wolvoleo 5mo agoOh there's a part missing, it should read "the same ads were also constantly stuffed under our window wipers when parked". Most curious phenomenon, haven't seen that elsewhere except in Poland.