12 historic pictures as Preston says bye-bye to its iconic red phone boxes - but it's only ta-ta for now...

Eight of the nine iconic booths which lined Market Street until yesterday morning formed what was the longest line of traditional call boxes in the country - with the ninth standing slightly apart from the others, which were arranged in pairs.

However, fans of the Grade II-listed facilities, which were disconnected around a decade ago, need not get too hung up about their future - because their disappearance is only temporary.

The phone boxes have been taken away for restoration and will return to their rightful place, alongside the former Preston main post office building, in the spring.

While their original purpose will remain confined to the past, the hope is that the refurbished cubicles can find a new eye-catching function as audio-visual and art installations. The below-ground technical work needed to facilitate that change will take place while the boxes are away from their longstanding home.

After their early morning removal, the booths were transported to East Yorkshire where the restoration - which includes sandblasting and repainting - will be carried out, at a cost of £80,000.

Preston City Council acquired the phone boxes in 2021 amid concern about their deteriorating condition and repeated vandalism.

Cllr Valerie Wise, the authority’s cabinet member for community wealth building described them as “a landmark in the centre of our city that we’ll bring back to life for current and future generations to enjoy”.

“Once the restoration is complete and the kiosks are returned to their home on Market Street, we will work with artists to commission light, audio visual or graphic work to

bring them alive, adding to the vibrancy of the Harris Quarter.”

The first of the payphones to be installed on Market Street was the one that stands closest to the market itself, a short distance from the eight that make up the record-breaking row.

A booth appeared in that location in the mid-1930s - in the cream colour that characterised them during that era. That box was later replaced with the “K6” design, of the type seen elsewhere on the city thoroughfare, with the other facilities later introduced at different times through until the 1960s.

Six of the kiosks are adorned with the crowns of George V and George VI - meaning they must date back to before 1953. The K6 was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who was also responsible for Preston’s Cenotaph war memorial nearby, while his father, George Gilbert Scott, designed Preston Town Hall.

Liam Carr, director of L. Carr Contractors, the firm that will undertake the restoration of Preston's precious phone booths, said of their forthcoming work: “The award of this prestigious contract allows us to revitalise these historic telephone boxes and enhance community pride and local tourism, ensuring that the charm and nostalgia associated with such iconic traditional red boxes endure in an increasingly digital age.”

Meanwhile, John Chesworth, chair of Preston's Towns Fund Strategic Board, added: "The long-awaited and much-anticipated restoration of these historic telephone boxes [will] be an outstanding addition to the Harris Quarter. They represent an invaluable and unique city asset - and bringing them back into use will provide a popular focal point for many people."

Is this my colour?

As the Post revealed last year when a planning application for the restoration of the phone kiosks was submitted, they will not be repainted in quite their original shade. Instead, they will be given a lick of “currant red”, which was the colour borne by later versions of the phone box from 1968 onwards.

Crucially, however, that shade has also been used since then whenever earlier phone boxes have been redecorated – including those on Market Street, which were spruced up back in the 1990s. For that reason, city planning officials concluded there would be “no discernible consequence” to not reverting to the original colour.

The crowns on the boxes will also be painted in gold – as some of them already are – when they would all have been red originally. A report by town hall planners noted that the discrepancy was the result of an “inconsistent approach to…restoration” taken in the 1990s and 2000s – before the council gained control of the call boxes – and that the use of gold in the latest refurbishment would signify that the kiosks had all undergone the same revamp.

It was also acknowledged that while the use of colour-changing lights in the restored booths “would not be in-keeping” with their original form, they would initially have been lit at night and, from the 1970s, during the day as well, following the introduction of fluorescent lights.

A condition was attached to the planning permission granted to the project to ensure that the renovated boxes are “well maintained in their new condition” - meaning they should never be allowed to fall back into the state to which they had sunk before their removal.

A planning report concluded that the refurbishment works will “preserve” the listed structures – as required under legislation – and will not harm their significance.

Dialling up the past: 125 years of the Great British phone box

Early 1900's - the first telephone boxes were installed on British streets.

1921 - the first standardised kiosk, the K1, was introduced.

1926 - the K2 design, in what would become the iconic phone box red colour, was rolled out in London. It proved too big and expensive to install anywhere else in the country. Two hundred of these originals, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, remain in the capital today, out of the 1,700 originally put in place.

1927 - Scott's simplified follow-up, the K3, was introduced, in a cream colour. Now an exceptionally rare sight for phone box spotters.

Early 1930s - the K4, designed by the engineering department of the General Post Office (GPO), was created. It included a post box and stamp machine and was ultimately considered too cumbersome to roll out widely. There are only five examples left.

1934 - prototypes of a K5 - possibly intended to be made of concrete - were produced, but not on a large scale.

1935 - the K6 - as still seen today on Preston's Market Street was introduced. It was again designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, this time to mark the silver jubilee of the coronation of King George V. The aim was to create something cost-effective that could be used across Britain. Over 60.000 K6s were installed until 1968 and about one in five of them still exist. The majority of the more than 3,000 listed phone boxes in the UK are K6s.

Late 1960s/early 1970s - slightly tweaked designs were introduced in the form of the K7 and K8, the latter being the last new phone box during the period that the network was the responsibility of the GPO.

1980 - The British Telecom (BT) brand was introduced, becoming independent of the GPO the following year.

1984 - following privatisation of BT, radically different phone box designs were rolled out by the company, the first of which was the stainless-steel-panelled KX100.

2008 - BT introduced its 'Adopt a Kiosk' scheme, which sought to find new uses for phone boxes, which had become rapidly redundant since the turn of the millennium as a result of the increase in mobile phone use. Some communities have turned their defunct phone boxes into boxes exchanges and other services.

Source: Growth Lancashire and elsewhere