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Stanmore Marsh Box

Started by petewilson, Oct 23, 2012, 04:21 pm

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petewilson

Oct 23, 2012, 04:21 pm Last Edit: Oct 29, 2012, 10:37 am by hb88banzai
At first glance I thought it was Barnet.......
The surroundings, etc...
But the box is completely different with Different Signs, Windows and St John plate...
???
Unknown(1960's).jpg

P.S. is anybody else apart from banzai and myself finding this topic interesting??



evil bob


Scarfwearer

It might make sense to post these unidentified boxes in the http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?board=136.0 board, which is a Quiet Board (see: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3849.0). Hb88banzai is looking after these boards though, so it's up to him. It would also be possible to make the http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?board=138.0 board quiet, if that's preferred.

Crispin

Volpone

I find the subject extremely interesting.  

I'm not discerning enough to note differences from the Barnett box, but the way I understand it, the St. John's badge signifies a first aid kit.  So if that was removed the badge should've been removed.  Or it could've been stolen by vandals.  The Barnett box was in use for quite a long time, so if the window differences are just the glass pattern, that could've changed as panes broke or became otherwise unservicable.  If it is just that it has blue window trim, the paintjob on all the boxes changed around 1953.  Blue trim would indicate this photo was from before that date.  
"My dear Litefoot, I've got a lantern and a pair of waders, and possibly the most fearsome piece of hand artillery in all England. What could possibly go wrong?"
-The Doctor.

Mark

The location does indeed look very much like the Barnet box, nice find by the way Pete.

I would hazard a guess (not being a Londoner of course) that the bus must be going the wrong way for it to actually be the Barnet By Pass box.

hb88banzai

Oct 24, 2012, 02:49 am #5 Last Edit: Oct 24, 2012, 09:57 am by hb88banzai
Great picture!

Don't think it's Barnet By-Pass, though - if it were, there would be a road visible to the left (only 7 yards away) instead of trees, and there would be hints of a slight hill behind it. I also note that, assuming the Box is level on its base, the bus is on a bit of a down grade.

I thought about moving these, but it seems OK, maybe even preferable to post these new photos on a wider basis as there really aren't that many of them per day and you never know when it might tickle somebody's memory. It's easy enough to rename the topic and move things to the Metbox Catalog now when they are found.

If others complain, however, feel free to quiet it.

I've found it a bit easier to keep track of them when separate from the Metbox Catalog. If the feeling is we should move them, perhaps an option would be to create another section specifically for Unknown Boxes, then leave it open or quiet it as per the member consensus.

Pete - do you want me to delete the two or three of your Topics here in Police Box History that I recreated in the Metbox Catalog when I found them before I was able to just move things?


EDIT: Replies bringing up another Box moved to it's own Topic:  http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3982.0

hb88banzai

Oct 24, 2012, 11:23 am #6 Last Edit: Oct 24, 2012, 01:24 pm by hb88banzai
I think I may have found this Box's location.

First off, the photo is tagged as being "1960s", but based on the appearance of the Box I would put it more like the late 1940s to early 1950s at the latest. The paint on the Box is medium blue with blue window frames, and it is also yet another Box that still has the Transitional Mark 1 top signs despite it being otherwise fitted out as a Mark 2 (there appear to be more of these than I had imagined). All the Boxes we've seen have been painted dark blue with white trim by no later than the mid-50s, and probably earlier.

It's hard to get a perfect verification, because there are some features there that may, or may not have existed when the original photo was taken. Specifically, there is a line of traffic barriers that we don't know when were installed. Also, Google street view's use of very wide angle lenses throws everything off when trying to match things in tight spaces (one usually has to back off and use a zoom to get close to anything like the views taken with a normal lense).

The candidate Box is S13 (Whitchurch Lane, north side 20 yards east of Marsh Lane, Canons Park).  It stood on Stanmore Marsh, a couple dozen yards west of a bus stop on the way to Canons Park Station and then on to Edgware.

Here is a current street view approximating the POV of the original photo (should be a little further down the road to the left and with a narrower field of view) --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-ApproxPOV_StreetviewV2.JPG

Street View URL:  http://maps.google.com/maps?q=stanmore+marsh,+canons+park,+UK&hl=en&sll=51.612074,-0.304356&sspn=0.015004,0.033603&t=h&hq=stanmore+marsh,&hnear=Canons+Park,+Station+Parade,+Edgware+HA8+6RW,+United+Kingdom&layer=c&cbll=51.607292,-0.30064&panoid=5pZ6-9wd398uHR27RxgIJg&cbp=12,339.57,,1,10.6&z=18

Note that in the original photo the grade I mentioned is really a dip in the road. It is sloping down from the left, getting steeper towards the front of the bus, and then bottoms out and seems to start going up again just before the right edge of the photo. The Box also seems to be on a similar slope. The Met List location would put the Box just to the left of a dip in the Marsh (probably a seasonal stream or drainage ditch, which is visible in the street view) and right where that would have been is a suggestive flattening of the bank large enough to site a Police Box.

This area of roadway also dips due to that stream or ditch, so everything seems to fit except the aforementioned barriers and the proximity of the road, 20 yards to the left of the Box.  However, if the barriers weren't there back then and considering the low angle the photo was taken from (Google street views being shot from a mast mounted to the roof of a van), the tall grass in the photo would have almost certainly obscured the road.

Take a look at it and see what you think. I'm going to hold off on tagging this as found until I get a sense of whether others think this might be right. I did check the areas along almost the entire path of Bus Route 18 as best I could reconstruct the older version of the route, skipping only the section between London Bridge and Paddington as being pointless. This is the only Site that seemed to fit.

EDIT:  Replies concerning another Box moved into its own Topic:  http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3986.msg46273;topicseen#msg46273

petewilson

Oct 24, 2012, 01:24 pm #7 Last Edit: Oct 24, 2012, 02:54 pm by hb88banzai
You're far to good at this Banzai!  ;D

EDIT --  Photo and text moved to applicable Topic: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3820.msg46287#msg46287

Fardels Bear

I'm enjoying the old photos threads. It's great to see so many popping up!
"Does he still have that rubbish beard?"


Dalekoracle

A brilliant bit of detective work there!
Keep up the good work!
Mark

hb88banzai

Dec 11, 2013, 09:22 am #11 Last Edit: Dec 11, 2013, 10:01 am by hb88banzai
Tim Clayton/trc11 (a recent addition to our membership) has another photo of this Box --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-HiRes-(c1970).jpg

The closest house behind the bus has been replaced by a new one, but many of the other houses visible in the background can still be seen when you go looking, so it is easily confirmed that this is S13 even without the route info on the Bus.

A blowup --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-HiRes-(c1970)-Blowup.JPG

To quote Tim - "The 186 bus was Whitchurch Lane, Stanmore (box S13, my local, which my dad allegedly used once to report failed street lighting).  The bus, SMS83, is new so it must be June 1970.  Interesting that the box, so near its death, is in such good shape.  Photographer was JGS Smith, deceased.  (I remember noting the 4 ft square depression in the grass until some years later)."

The OS maps that show this Box:

From the 1932-1936 composite map (marked "PCB" at center of map) --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-OS_MapExtract-1932-1936.JPG

From the 1963 OS map (marked "PCB" at center of map) --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-OS_MapExtract-1963.JPG

As you can see, there was a GPO kiosk just west of the Box Site, and if you take a close look at the first photo in this topic you can just make it out through the windows at the back of the bus (look behind the woman's head) --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-OriginalPhoto-GPO_Kiosk_Blowup.JPG

Finally, looking at the OS maps and the new photo it becomes obvious that the street view shown above (partially based on the original Met List description of the location and seemingly confirmed by a dip in the road) was off by around 30 yards. The Box was actually at the more eastern dip in the road (ironically where I first looked) near the center of this edge of Stanmore Marsh and much closer to the current Bus stop.

Here's the revised street view of the Box Site (at the red pointer) --

Stanmore_Marsh_Box-S13-RevisedSiteStreetview(marked).JPG

The original Met List had the Box 20 yards east of Marsh Lane, but measuring directly off the OS Map shows the Box was actually 50 yards east of Marsh Lane (database description now corrected).

Site coordinates per the OS maps:

Longitude / Latitude:    51.607381, -0.300429

OS Grid Coordinates:    517789, 191206

URL:  https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.607381,+-0.300429&hl=en&ll=51.607277,-0.300364&spn=0.000013,0.0109&sll=51.457382,-0.480588&sspn=0.00476,0.0109&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.607286,-0.300539&panoid=bkep2nNNXfLAoyP4KU1GxA&cbp=12,36.07,,0,3.08