In July 2023 four rare K8 telephone boxes, found on several London Underground stations, were listed. Dating from the 1960s these are located on the platforms at the Chalfont and Latimer, Chorleywood, High Street Kensington, and Northwick Park stations.
The K8 was designed in 1965-66 by architect Bruce Martin who was commissioned by the General Post Office, which owned the public telephone network at that time. They have been listed at Grade II by DCMS on the advice of Historic England. Most of the remaining K8s are in Hull, nine of which were listed earlier this year (see elsewhere on this blog).
The tube station phone boxes survived privatisation in the 1980s as they were owned by London Underground and housed an internal telephone system for station staff. Each of the boxes are painted in different colours, as a way of denoting this private use. Only around 50 such telephone boxes now survive, despite more than 11,000 being built between 1968 and 1983. There are only 24 listed examples in England, and Historic England will consider listing applications of any unrecorded K8s where suitable evidence is provided to support the case for listing.
To learn more visit the Historic England website here: https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/rare-phone-boxes-listed-london-underground/
Industrial Heritage Networks 