Ringing in the changes

Brr-ring Brr-ring! 

Unlike the example shown above in Carey Street at the back of the Law Courts, most of the old red telephone boxes on our streets are no longer in use as communication devices. They stand empty and dirty with broken glass windows, used for other things.

However, here and there, some have been transformed into little libraries, coffee shops, art installations and mini-greenhouses, such as just up the road from me near Archway station, London N19, where two K6 kiosks contain plants – behind the bus stop here at the top of Holloway Rd and at the end of Hargrave Park, installed to replace a metal consruction that was there in 2019. 

Further afield, others are sport street art, with paintings designed to look like someone is trapped inside, such as a diver painted on the rear/park side of this one in Regent Square and a similar one in St John Street.

I've just returned to this, having started writing it a few weeks ago. I'm only now back on the case, having finally attended to a swathe of unread emails, one of which is from Londonist Substack about this very subject – thanks M@, I now need not continue this any further. 

I have a Jane's London Substack account myself you know. 

Who is removing the old metal Telephone and Telegraph signs?

Last week, as I wandered along the eastern section of Lillie Road, between North End Road and the vast open space where Earls Court Exhibition Centre used to be, I glanced up to my left to check on a couple of old bits of signage in this side alley adjacent to the man in the red shirt (this is a screen grab from Google streetview, as are the all the subsequent street views in this post):

The pic is from May 2023 and, if you look closely, you'll see a there's a dark street sign high up on the side wall telling us that this is/was TELEPHONE PLACE, SW8, part of the Borough of Fulham. I say 'was' because you won't find Telephone Place listed in today's directories. 

Here is my poor quality pic of how the sign looked back in 2011 (Maggie's photo here is better)

I like the idea that this probably led to the local telephone exchange where well-spoken ladies would have connected your calls.

Well, the metal sign has gone. Telephone Place is just a memory now; a ghost. See here for July 2024. I wonder who removed it, and why? Was it the council, was it the owner of that building, or did someone nick it? After all, enamel signs like these fetch a decent price these days. 

The hand-painted ghostsign for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH is still there though. I used to think this was happy accident as regards the name of the newspaper and the name of the little street:

The bottom line on the sign has been overpainted, but Stockcar Pete's pic here shows that one of the layers is easy to make out: ALL SATURDAY'S SPORTS & LATEST NEWS. 

I'm now reminded of another metal sign at 31 Turnpike Lane on the old Post Office. My pic below is from 2016, but it's since disappeared. A quick look at retrospective Google streetview shows it was removed some time 2018/19. 

Another telephone sign thats gone missing, was opposite Harlesden's clocktower, where there used to be a dark blue and white enamel sign above the Post Office (now Alishba Newsagent) – YOU MAY TELEPHONE FROM HERE. It's made an appearance on this blog a few times in the past, such as here.

Here's my pic from 2008 which shows this was probably two-sided and would have stuck out at 90 degrees to the wall visible from both directions:

It was still there in June 2016 as shown below, but gone by 2017.

Do you know of any others?

There's also Telegraph Street off Moorgate in The City of London, where telecommunications properly began. I took a few pics of some interesting architectural features back in Summer 2024 but I can't recall spotting any old metal signs. I'll leave you hanging (on the telephone) re that and I will update this if I find any more.

R.I.P. Stamford Trading ghostsign, Hoxton

This enormous ghostsign for Stamford Veneers, high up on a Kingsland Road stables building facing the Overground Line at Hoxton has recently been overpainted.

Pic credit: by StockCarPete – see his full image here

It had been visible since the mid-1940s. My pics below, taken from the railway track, show the sign in October 2019 and earlier this month (Jan2024):

It’s beyond me why whoever did this wasted so much time and effort on this shoddy obliteration, especially as it doesn't appear that they spent much time and effort on it. By which I mean, it's not even been painted out properly – it's patchy – there are varying sections of thin and thick paint and roller marks are clearly visible. I suggest this has been achieved at speed involving long ladders or ropes, possibly at night time, rather than using a reliable contractor and scaffolding.

The sign featured a great example of the old Shoreditch telephone code and formed one of the first stops on my Hoxton and Shoreditch ghostsigns guided walk. I'll still include it on the walk though as a case study.

Oh well, the modern paint will fade away over time. The old sign will gradually re-emerge.

More telephone codes here.

K2 and K6 phone boxes – conservation or dereliction?

Happy new year people ... here's to a marvellous 2019!
........................................................................................

Tourists love 'em but the powers that be don't seem to give a wotsit!
K2 phone boxes are still a common sight on out high streets. But these and their successor, the slightly smaller K6, are falling into disrepair.
Most of us have mobiles/cellphones these days so there is scant need to utilise theses bright red icons anymore* but if they are to remain on our streets (and they should) then why are they in such poor condition? I mean, who is supposed to be managing and maintaining them**?

This thought popped into my head yesterday as I was passing Islington Central Library on Holloway Road. Contractors have recently been working behind scaffold and plastic sheeting giving the lovely 1906 building a clean but now the work has been completed I can see that the phone box on the corner is filthy! It already had some broken or missing window panes but just look at the state of it now...

As you can see it's covered in plaster splashes, muck and dirt, as is the pavement around it which forms part of the library's curtilage.
But it's not the only one that looks so bad. For instance, in Islington, there is another one in poor condition outside St Paul's church at the top end of Essex Road, and the pair outside Tesco on Islington Green are horribly neglected.
Yet in nearby Canonbury there are some glossy red well-painted examples such as this one outside The Canonbury Tavern. Why? Because this is a 'conservation area'.
So, this begs the question: "whose responsibility is it regarding the upkeep of these phone kiosks?". And who painted or gave authority to paint, the ones in Canonbury?  And if that is the body that owns them, why haven't all others been similarly maintained too? Why only conservation areas and tourist meccas?

* apart from advertising space for 'services' or as 'conveniences'

**(8thJan) I am now in the middle of an on-going email conversation with someone at BT about this – she as good as tells me they rely on the goodwill of the public to let them know when these kiosks need attention. i.e. they expect us to act as unpaid quality controllers or maintenance managers on their behalf.  This means they only fix the kiosks when it's pointed out that there is something wrong with them thusfurther enhancing BT's irresponsibility.
I will report back when I have more. Meanwhile, go paint your local kiosk any colour you would like, as I doubt BT will notice let alone care!

ATM/ATE – The Strowger Automatic Telephone System

All this looking up, looking down, looking around me means I am forever spotting 'new' old things.
Last Spring I spotted a small cover plate that had some lovely Art Nouveau-esque letters on it set within a circle. I wondered what ATE or TEA could be. A utility of some kind? I just took a snap and walked on. A few days later I mis-labelled it as Caledonian Road. Which is why it ended up in this collection here.
A few months later I noticed what I thought was another one outside The Marlborough Building on Holloway Road – turns out I was looking at the same one. Intrigued by this, I decided to keep my eyes open for more. I even asked my MP Jezza if he had any ideas. He looked confused and said he hadn't a clue. I wondered if it was something to do with trams seeing as it was positioned where I knew a tram/bus stop used to be.
Then, earlier this year, I happened on two similar ones near the clocktower in Crouch End, but these had an M instead of an E. Ooooh, I thought; what are they? MAT? ATM? It just had to be the latter.
A bit of googling and I have found that ATM = The Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company and ATE = The Automatic Telephone and Electric Company, an earlier company dating from 1892. 
The concept of a telephone switching mechanism goes back to the 1890s – the brainchild of a Mr Almon B. Strowger of Kansas City, USA who very quickly sold his patent for lots of money and was later passed on to the Bell company for $millions. 

A Crouch End pavement, top left, followed by a close up of the marvellous ATM logo and then my original ATE find. The information plate is from the back of a late 1930s telephone (model L11561).

Some of the ATM cover plates I have spotted in Holloway, Finsbury Park and Crouch End

This article gives the full story.
It appears that ATM opened for business in 1912 but I am becoming quite confused as to when the plates in my pics below date from. Especially the ATE one. The article says that the first automatic director exchange in London opened in November 1927: this was HOLborn, supplied and installed by ATM. I can see no mention of when NORth London was included. 
In 1936 the company changed its name to Automatic Telephone and Electric Company (AT&E) but retained the old logo device with the letters ATM in a circle was retained as it was so familiar and had been applied to so many castings and pressings. For a while the new name was frequently shortened to Automatic Electric in advertisements. 
Old logo device? Old? Oh I am confused. Where does the ATE logo fit into this timeline ?  
I have also found this about the Strowger ATM timeline. 
But I am addled now. I confess that am now completely confused re ATE vs AT&E. If anyone out there would like to delve further and get the timeline correct, then please be my guest, but do copy me in with updates.

What I do know is that I am now spotting these plates everywhere. For instance, there are lots in the Old Street and City Road area.

Caledonian Road manholes and cover plates – Jeremy Corbyn eat your heart out!!

Jeremy's not the only pavement nerd in Islington.
You are probably already aware that I am partial to interesting boot scrapers, flame snuffers, fanlights and coal hole cover plates. Well just like my MP who likes to photograph man hole and storm drain covers I too often scan the pavements and tarmac for unusual functional metalwork.
It's not about crossing numbers off a list, as per a trainspotter (though Jezza might indeed have a shelf full of old ironmongers' catalogues), for me it's about the marriage of design and functionality, spotting a 'new' design I hadn't seen before; noticing new wordings and agreeable patterns.
Designs have changed or have been adapted over the decades. Some companies have become completely defunct as utilities change and thus become metal ghosts of the past.
The twelve photos below, all taken along Caledonian Road between Holloway and Caledonian Road tube station, perfectly illustrate my point.

Having noticed how the wording for specific utilities had altered over the years  I took lots of snaps on the walk back to illustrate this. It always amuses me how other people on the street look at me in a strange way when I do this, – they probably think I work for the council or something!
Notice how the first three for Electricity Dept are slightly different; some with full points/punctuation, some without, each varying typographically in weight and style:

I also spotted a couple with Electrical Supply on them and another with Electric Light. A real super-nerd in this field would be able to accurately date all of the above and put them into chronological order. I'm just happy to notice the differences.
Check out also the various cover plates for communications and water where similar changes have happened:

And finally, I spotted some real metal ghosts – access cover plates for London County Council Tramways:

Above are four of the tramway cover plates in this particular stretch of road.
In the 1920s the LCCT ran trams through Holloway to Caledonian Market and beyond. See here for some basic tram info. A short-lived compressed air tramway ran along this route from 1881-3.
If anyone has any further info please do let me know.

UPDATE (June 2017): Since writing the above, I have noticed tramway covers elsewhere, though they seem to be in batches and then stop for a while, as in the middle section of Caledonian Road and some stretches of Holloway Road and Upper Street.

Trendell's Daimler Hire Service – Wembley 1657

This rather lovely ghostsign advertisement for Trendell's can be found on the side of a red brick building on the corner of Thurlow Gardens, Wembley.

It looks 1930s to me. As you can see, they would have been an up-market company offering [chauffeur-driven] Daimler vehicles for hire.
Note also the pre-1966 phone code WEM-1567, where WEM is short for Wembley and would have been equivalent to 936 on a keypad. More old London phone codes here.

A Wooden Cover Plate in Tollington Park

Strolling along Tollington Park, a lovely road in N4, last week I happened across a large rectangular cover plate within the pavement that was, and still is, wooden on its uppermost face. I have never seen such a thing before.
I thought at first this was the secondary layer; the metal and concrete lid having been removed but, no, on close inspection it can be seen that the wood is flush with the pavement.
Walking further along the pavement, that's sidewalk to my readers in the States ;-), I noticed that it was the same dimensions at the old BT ones that have the pebble-dashed tops, see above bottom right.
So, this means underneath that eroded wooden top with holes in it there are wires and all sorts of circuit doobreys for telephones.
Is this OK?
I assume so, seeing as the wood appears to have been exposed to the elements for quite some time already.
Hmmm... pondering...

Mobile phone etiquette

There was an item on the news this morning about cashiers in supermarkets refusing to serve customers who are talking on their mobile phones. They say it's rude. The item went on to discuss other forms of mobile phone (mis-)use and whether answering a call or text when we are in the middle of a conversation is also impolite.
Well, yes, I agree with the second part. Why do some people think it's perfectly OK to take a phone call when the conversation they are having with a person in front of them with is in full flow? It's even worse when they answer a text. The butter-in is given more attention than the person who was already being supposedly listened to.
If a human being came up in person and butted in like that, then at least there would be a chance to introduce that person into the conversation. So it follows that doing the same when a phone call comes is even more rude because the invisible person on the other end of the phone, who didn't even buy the beers(!) is being perceived to be more important.
More often than not the person taking the call then proceeds to talk on the phone in front of the friend, or worse, wanders off and leaves them sitting there. If these calls were emergencies then OK, but they rarely are. This is what voicemail is for.
As regards the supermarket situation, I don't agree. Talking on the phone when is no different to talking to a real life friend. I think the cashiers are being very hypocritical here, as many times when being served in some large supermarkets the cashier who is supposed to be serving me has not even made eye contact, even when asking for the money or giving the change. I have on many occasions had to listen to cashiers talking to each other across the tills about how the day is dragging and asking each other what time their shift ends and where they are going out that evening. They behave like the customers are not even there. Now that's really rude!
And in some small shops and mini-markets a man at the till (I have only ever experienced men doing this) is on the phone when he starts serving me and continues to chat throughout the transaction and gives me my change without even looking at me, let alone a smile or a thank you.
Enough of this.
Here are some pics that show telephones in London.

Old London telephone exchanges

I have quite a few photos of old fire alarm bells. I was initially interested in the logos and typography, and the texture of the rusty old boxes. But just recently I noticed that a lot of them have pre-1966 telephone letter exchange codes on them.

These old codes worked such that the first 3 letters of an area were used for that exchange, for instance, BIS 1234 = BIShopsgate 1234. You have probably heard a someone with clipped vowels in a 1940s film saying, "Mayfair 2121" or similar.

I posted my most recent fire alarm pic to GWL and the interest was enough to set up a group to 'collect' images of these codes having realised that I had snapped many more of these myself within pics of old shops signs etc.

There were 263 London codes so I doubt we'll find existing examples of them all.

Many have unusual names such as TER for Kings Cross, referencing the railway TERminus.

If you have seen any yourself, do let me know or add them to the group.

Below are some of the one I have found myself:

Top row: Nags Head, Tower Bridge Road, Chatsworth Road, Roman Road

Middle row: Earlham Street, Wandsworth Road, Whitfield Street, Marylebone Lane

Bottom row: Curtain Road, Weston Park, Thornhill Road, Holloway Road