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The red phone box is a British icon - it's up there with London cabs and red buses. They are seen far and wide across the current and ex-British colonies around the world including Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda and the Channel Islands. The first standard telephone box in the UK was produced by the Post Office. It was made of concrete, painted cream with red glazing bars, and was designated as 'K1' (Kiosk No. 1).
The K1 design was so disliked that in 1924 a competition was run by the Royal Fine Arts Commission to design a kiosk. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's design was selected, made out of cast iron and the first red telephone box, known as 'K2' was born. In 1925 there were 1000 K1's in the UK.
From 1926 it was deployed in and around London whilst K1's were being distributed elsewhere. The colour red was chosen to make them easy to spot and the original wooden prototypes were placed into public service at undercover sites around London - the only known survivor is still in its original location at the entrance arch to the Royal Academy. All K2 kiosks still in existence on the streets are now preserved as listed buildings.
'K3' was again designed by Gilbert Scott. It was introduced in 1929, constructed from concrete as this was cheaper to use and was intended for nationwide use. This was painted cream with red glazing bars, like the K1.
'K4' was designed in 1927 and incorporated a post box and machines for buying stamps, however only 50 were built.
In 1934 the 'K5' was made of plywood and designed to be assembled and disassembled easily for exhibitions.
In 1935 the 'K6' was designed to commemorate the silver jubilee of King George V. It was the first red kiosk to be distributed outside of London. It was deployed to virtually every town and city, being used to replace most of the existing kiosks as well as for 1000's of new sites.
In 1952 Queen Elizabeth II decided to change the symbolic 'Tudor crown' as a symbol of her government and instead decided to use an actual representation of the crown used for British Coronations - the St Edwards Crown. This began to appear on the K6's.
The red colour wasn't universally accepted - lots of locals wanted a less visible colour. In response, the Post Office agreed to paint the telephone boxes, in areas of natural and architectural beauty, grey with red glazing bars. Also, Kingston upon Hull was the only area in the UK that didn't have red telephone boxes - this is because their phones came under the control of the Corporation of Hull rather than the Post Office. Their phones were painted cream and didn't have the crown on them.
In 1959 architect Neville Conder was commissioned to design the new box - the 'K7'. This however, never went past prototype stage. The 'K8' was designed by Bruce Martin in 1968. It was a modular design with a single pane of glass - and was also the last of the red kiosks. It was also painted a slightly redder 'Poppy Red'. By the 1980's there were 73,000 red phone boxes in existence.
Red phone boxes are now highly sought after as collector items. K6 replica flat packs are still being made and sold to the bar and restaurant trades. Those red telephone boxes still in situ are often restored to retain our heritage.
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