Tag: Red Phone Boxes

Another phone box that Mum and Dad found in the south-west of Scotland! The nice thing about rural places is that the local councils are more likely to maintain their phone boxes.

(Coordinates 54°85’80.0″N, 4°46’17.0″W.)

This box is no longer working – there’s a notice inside that explains that BT no longer own it (hence why the phone equipment has been removed) and it’s now the property of the local council. Wonder if they have alternative plans for it?

Again, the Google Street View cars have not visited Dumfries and Galloway for a decade and so the link above shows the box in a much more overgrown situation – they’ve since tidied the location up!

Here’s another phone box that Mum and Dad found in the south-west of Scotland. This one still works!

(Coordinates 54°76’95.2″N, 4°94’12.2″W.)

I’m not sure what the blue bit of rope is for, but on the whole this is a very nicely kept phone box. Interestingly, it doesn’t accept coins, only card payments:

It also accepts BT Chargecards. I still have mine, though I’m probably one of the few remaining people in the UK who does! I’m not sure that Mum and Dad would appreciate me charging a phone call to their bill with my Chargecard nowadays.

It’s interesting that even this still-working phone box has been modernised in some respect though. I wonder how many are out there that still accept coins?

Update May 2023: now with added menu!

This is another phone box found by Mum and Dad.

(Coordinates 54°98’40.4″N, 3°19’94.1″W.)

As you can probably tell from the decade-old date of the Google Street View image linked above (which is becoming a bit of a theme), this is another phone box from Dumfries and Galloway. It needs a bit of love (hopefully it’ll get adopted and repurposed at some point), but at least it’s still standing.

More from the area next week!

This is another phone box spotted by Mum and Dad while out and about in Dumfries and Galloway.

(Coordinates 54°98’55.2″N, 3°34’69.2″W.)

This is one of a number of countryside phone boxes that have been turned into defibrillator boxes – useful for places in the middle of nowhere where it takes longer for the emergency services to arrive.

Again, the Google Street View image linked above is ten years out of date (maybe the Google cars will visit Dumfries and Galloway again one day…), which shows us that this phone box was previously one of the many that were upgraded (in the early ’00s from what I remember) to an email/text/phone box – which are themselves fairly obsolete now that everyone has email/internet on their mobile!

Update November 2021: it’s now green!

Further update July 2025: it’s now a different shade of green!

Here’s another phone box spotted by Mum and Dad in Dumfries and Galloway.

(Coordinates 55°00’50.0″N, 3°42’26.6″W.)

This one is an interestingly-repurposed box that at some point in the last decade (as usual for Dumfries and Galloway, the Google Street View image linked above is from 2009) has been turned into a book repository!

More from the area next week.

I still have a few more phone boxes from Mum and Dad’s travels to share before I move onto my London Marathon ones. Here’s another one from Dumfriesshire.

(Coordinates 54°84’87.0″N, 4°26’41.5″W.)

This one is an abandoned husk that’s being slowly overgrown by plants. Sad but beautiful!

Another rural phone box that Mum and Dad found in Dumfries and Galloway!

(Coordinates 54°89’93.2″N, 4°79’63.6″W.)

A really beautifully kept example! It’s presumably just for the aesthetic pleasure of the holiday park visitors though, because Dad reports that the door doesn’t open.

Mum and Dad recently found this lovely refurbished phone box in New Galloway, near Castle Douglas.

The inside is full of flyers and posters and all sorts!

(Coordinates 55°07’49.0″N, 4°14’08.5″W.)

New Galloway is one of those places where the Google Street View cars don’t visit very often, so the linked image is from 2009, when the box was still red. It’s clearly being very well cared for now!

Update June 2025: still going strong!

This is another phone box found by Mum and Dad while travelling.

(Coordinates 55°67’08.3″N, 1°80’18.5″W.)

(You’ll have to make do with the linked Google satellite picture – you can see the wee red box outside the Crossman Hall! – because the Google Street View car couldn’t be bothered mapping out Lindisfarne properly. Sort it out, Google!)

This is a very nicely placed phone box outside the town hall. Very well kept too.