The Development of Telecoms - Preston

The row of red public telephone boxes along Preston's Market Street is the longest row of the old style of telephone kiosks anywhere in the UK. 

The Post Office had taken over almost all of the country's network in 1912 and the red telephone box was introduced to the London Metropolitan Boroughs as the result of a competition held in 1924 to design a kiosk that would be acceptable, as the previous concrete K1 (Kiosk No. 1) versions had been resisted because some authorities would only accept them if they had thatched roofs. 

These iconic red structures known as K2 (Kiosk No. 2) were created by Giles Gilbert Scott, a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and Battersea Power Station. He is said to have got his inspiration for them from the tomb of the wife of Sir John Soane, one of the greatest English architects, famous for designing the Bank of England in London. 

The K2, constructed from cast iron and painted red, was brought into service from 1926 and the K3, also designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, was introduced in 1929, constructed from concrete to make it more cost effective. 

K4, designed by the Post Office Engineering Department in 1927, also sold postage stamps on the outside but was unpopular as the stamps got wet and clumped together. K5 was introduced in 1934 and was a metal faced plywood construction. 

In 1935, K6 was again designed by Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V and by this time there were 19,000 telephone kiosks in the UK, however, thanks to K6, also known as the Jubilee Kiosk, by 1949 there were 35,000.

In 1959, architect Neville Conder was commissioned to design a more modern kiosk but his ideas didn't get passed the prototype stage. In 1968, Bruce Martin designed the K8. 

In 1980 in preparation for privatisation and rebranding to British Telecom, the Post Office announced that all red telephone boxes would be painted yellow to reflect BT's corporate colours. There was public outcry which resulted in only some of the kiosks being repainted and then in 1982 British Telecom introduced the KX100, which was designed to be more practical than attractive, and this sadly began to replace the existing boxes. 2,000 of the red phone boxes in prominent locations have been given listed status and the rest have been sold off as memorabilia. 

The Preston area covers 524 square miles and includes Blackpool, Fleetwood, Preston, Southport and Wigan. 

Although the south of the area is highly industrialised (coal and cotton), the greater part of the area is agricultural. 

There are 42 automatic and 16 manual exchanges within the Preston area with 40,683 lines and 66,664 stations, 322,644 miles of underground wire and 16,883 miles of overhead wire. The staff numbers 778, of which 582 are engineering.