Preston firm makes traditional phone boxes for London Hotel

RWH Iron Design are manufacturers of bespoke architectural, commercial and structural metalwork and often receive wacky and weird requests.

Their latest project took them down memory lane, creating a set of four red telephone boxes for a display at the one of the UK's busiest airport hotels, the Raddison at Heathrow.

"I work with a few pub companies that own bars and restaurants around the country. The Raddison were doing their hotel up during lockdown and said they wanted something jazzy," said owner Rob Hayton.

"We created telephone boxes that have phones and USB charging points in, it's a bit of a wacky concept."

The family owned business, based at Whitechapel in Preston, have been trading for 22 years, with Rob's eldest son welding the new telephone boxes together.

"My son Luke is in the business doing fabricating and the welding, and he took complete control of these telephone boxes, I didn't even touch them," he said.

"Without a doubt, the best part of our business is that we are so bespoke, we can make anything.

"If anyone contacted us with a project of anything to do with steel, copper, glass or aluminium we could do it for them. We have years and experience in making all different types of sculptures. We area tiny business in the middle of nowhere but we do so much more than just making staircases."

The Radisson Blu Edwardian at Heathrow, asked for the unique project to add some colour and a contemporary feel to the hotel.

As a rural business, the coronavirus lockdown meant that they had to close the business for a period of time, but insists they are grateful to the Government for their furlough support, which meant they could spend time together as a family.

"It has been wonderful for us to spend time together as a family and have days out and barbecues. On the work element, there has been not as much work coming in, but most of our work force is back now and we are optimistic for the industry."