The government has granted Grade II-listed status to four rare phone boxes located in London Underground stations due to their architectural and historic significance. These phone boxes are part of the K8 series, which consisted of 11,000 kiosks installed across the UK between 1968 and 1983. Today, only about 50 K8 boxes remain, primarily in Hull, where they were used for an independent phone network rather than by British Telecom.
Unlike the traditional red phone boxes, the K8s found in tube stations were owned by London Underground and served as internal phone systems for station staff. This distinction led to their unique color schemes. The recently listed phone boxes can be found at High Street Kensington and Chorleywood (both blue), Chalfont and Latimer (maroon), and Northwick Park (white).
Tom Foxall, from Historic England, the organization that recommends listings to the government, praises the K8 design, stating that it is genuinely “iconic.” He emphasizes the need to preserve these remaining K8s due to their significance in 20th-century Britain’s physical, technological, and cultural landscape.
Additionally, it is worth mentioning that the K8 was commissioned by the General Post Office, which owned the public phone network in the mid-1960s. Architect Bruce Martin designed the K8 with a minimalist style, featuring a flat roof and large windows, in contrast to the dome-topped K2 and K6 boxes designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1920s.
The majority of K8s were removed by British Telecom after its privatization in 1984, replaced by the aluminum-framed KX100, and subsequently discarded with the rise of mobile phones. The recent inclusion of these four tube station K8s, along with the nine K8s listed earlier in Hull, brings the total number of K8s on the national heritage list for England to 23.
Historic England is appealing to phone box enthusiasts to help locate unrecorded K8s. Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, the arts and heritage minister, expresses his delight at the listing of these remaining examples, recognizing their importance and hoping that they will continue to be admired and enjoyed for years to come.
In present times, there are approximately 21,000 working public phone boxes in Britain, a significant decrease from the peak of around 100,000 in the mid-90s. Many of these phone boxes have been repurposed into community libraries or to house public defibrillators. It is worth noting that 96% of UK adults now own a mobile phone.
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