Sheen Lane Box

[petewilson]

Hi All....

Another Photograph to add to the catalogue I believe this must be Box V15 outside the Odeon Cinema, Richmond in 1956.....

Pete

[hb88banzai]

Yep, it's V15 - great find!

Here is an approximate POV street view --



The Odeon was certainly a much more interesting building than that modernist thing that replaced it. The rest of the buildings and the obelisk are still there though.

Here is a blowup of the Box in the photo --



Now, the interesting thing is that when installed this was one of the original 22 wood & concrete Richmond Boxes, and in this 1956 photo it appears to show one of these (with various updates that we know they received). Poor resolution, but the way the pillars end and the geometry of the signs and roof stacks all look very much like one of that type. If correct, this would be the latest photo of one of these Boxes we've seen to date, and means at least one of them was still in service some 27 years after installation. Not bad.

View of the Box Site --



Box Site Street View URL:  http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sheen+Lane,+London,+UK&hl=en&ll=51.464779,-0.266579&spn=0.000007,0.004249&sll=51.469573,-0.268395&sspn=0.000907,0.0021&hnear=Sheen+Ln,+London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&layer=c&cbll=51.464785,-0.266453&panoid=6kwjWEVJXKcXIDi1oAgrdw&cbp=12,188.47,,0,24.13&z=18

[hb88banzai]

A few more of this Box from the site Dalekoracle discovered.

All are listed as having the same "first used" date, which is probably when they were first published by Tuck, specifically 12 October 1953 --

Note: this first photo (a "real photo" postcard) is just a better version of an image already posted above, but the other two are new, and no additional compression was necessary with any of them.







Some blowups to see the detail a bit better --



Remember the discussion near the beginning where I thought the blowup of the first, fuzzy version of this photo looked like the original Mark 1 wooden box that first stood here (and the first to be photographed in action back in 1929)? The Met memo I later read from circa 1947 where they indicate the last 10 wooden boxes were planned to be replaced by (presumably Mark 4) concrete boxes made me rethink that, as this photo was obviously from the 1950s or later. Well, take a look at these...





Couldn't have asked for much better, one being almost perfectly side on and one being nearly corner on with a clear view of the sides now makes things pretty clear. Look at the low roof, very shallow top tier and deep inset of the first tier - no other type of Metbox had a roof line like this - this has to be a Mark 1. Note also the one opening window on what would be the left side of this Box - only Mark 1's and Mark 2's had that feature as well.

So, we now know that at least one of the very first Mark 1's was still in use as of the early 1950s. Pretty good for a timber box sited in a very busy area. Ironic that it was also the one so prominently featured in the press in 1929.

[hb88banzai]

Small problem with the reliability of the dates given for these Tuck postcards on the site discovered by Dalekoracle (https://tuckdb.org/) - looks like they were wrong, at least for some of them.

The first of the above newly posted images of this Box (the one that includes the Odeon Cinema in the background and is essentially an uncropped version of the pic that started this Topic) is dated on the Tuck site as being from 12 October 1953 (its "First Use" date); however, on looking at the billboard of the theatre we can see it was playing 'Port Afrique'. According the IMDB this British film didn't even come out until 7-Sep-1956. While good news for the Mark 1, having been still on site and in use as late as the last half of 1956, it means we can't treat the dates given on tuckdb.org as always accurate. Sigh.

BTW - This reverse view is from the same set and has the theatre showing the same film, but the resolution is too low to really see the Metbox as more than a blur (a rare instance on the site where they don't have a reasonably hi-res version) --



A blowup, for what it's worth --




Lastly - I've posted them elsewhere, but it occurs to me I should have posted the following clippings here as well.

A newspaper clipping from the Daily Mirror of 24-Jul-1929 showing this Box shortly after being erected (the top globe lamp has yet to be installed), and over four months before being commissioned into service --



And this one from the Daily Mirror of 30-Nov-1929, the Saturday before the experimental system in Richmond was brought fully on line for use by both Police and Public --



It depicts a demonstration of the system to the Press using this Box, showing how quickly a car would respond to a call for assistance. It also shows the roof features that make the identification of the Box in the Tuck photo postcards above as still being a Mark 1 in 1956 an absolute certainty.

[Volpone]

I think this has been mentioned before, but the very early boxes are interesting to me, because you can find more than a couple of them that are closer to the 1963 prop's silhouette than the production models are.  That last picture has a very short base and the capitals (finials?  Need a good term) on the corner posts look to extend to the top of the first roof tier (while they are much shorter on the actual boxes and the 1980 prop).  And while there are 2 more steps to the roof, they are short steps with a fairly small...increment?--step-in from tier to tier.  In fact in that one newspaper photo you have to be really looking to see that it isn't one step, like a TARDIS.

Of course the slope on the actual roof is noticeably steeper than on a TARDIS, and I suspect the corner posts are wider, but all in all, the early, early boxes are very TARDIS-like, IMO. 

[domvar]

The Austin A35 in the ES4 pic dates them as >1956 as well

[hb88banzai]

Yes, Tuck appears to have liked to release sets of postcards for a particular region all at once, so I have a feeling all these "Sheen Lane" photos were taken more or less at around the same time, maybe even the same day. They were all unused, however, so none of them had any postmarks to give an upper date limit, though since revivals weren't as big a thing back in the day, it's probably when 'Port Afrique' was still first run in the theatres, circa late 1956.

And yes, I also think it's very interesting that the TARDIS as a Police Box has always been described as being made of wood, and it just happens to look most like the Metropolitan Police Box model that was also made mostly of wood. Have no doubt, with almost 60 of them being built, not including the prototypes, there was really nothing "experimental" about them. They were a full fledged production run (two separate runs, actually - Richmond/Wood Green and Wimbledon plus a couple stragglers), and as we see here, at least one of them was in continuous use at a busy intersection and still standing strong for at least 27 years!

Hmmm, in fact, I wonder if the the Sheen Lane Box might have finally been replaced some time around early 1963, perhaps ending up in a certain scrap yard...

[hb88banzai]

Another clipping showing a slightly different angle of this Box during the demonstration for the Press just before it was commissioned. This one from the Daily Express of 30 November 1929 (at full 600dpi resolution)--



The whole photo spread and article, reduced & compressed to fit the Forum's limits (Sheen Lane Box photo at far left) --



Apparently, its prominent location made it quite the star during the initial publicity for the first full sub-division trial of the new system.

[hb88banzai]

More newspaper clippings from the 30 November 1929 press announcement featuring this Box.

First, the page 2 article that went with the above back cover photo from the 30-Nov-1929 Daily Mirror (reduced copy of the back cover photo attached for reference) --



A slightly better quality copy (from a different source) of the above photo spread from the 30-Nov-1929 Daily Express article (Sheen Lane Box at far left) --



And finally, yet another slightly different angle from the same photo shoot, this time from the 30-Nov-1929 issue of The Daily News and Westminster Gazette (Sheen Lane Box at far right) --

[kiwidoc]

That's delightful! 

[hb88banzai]

An aerial photo of the area, taken 12 June 1937 --



A full resolution closeup (Box at centre frame) --

[hb88banzai]

A couple more photos of this Box.

This one from what appears to be early post-war --



And this very early Press Photo --



Here's the back of this photo --



As you can see, it's dated 23 December 1929, less than a month after it went active. Note that the information sign below the phone door and the St. John Ambulance sign are not yet in place. The latter did not get put on until the Boxes were finally equipped with First Aid Boxes early in 1930, and the need for the former wasn't even recognized until about the same time, and not implemented until later in the year.

Note that I actually have this Press Photo, so will be posting a higher res version as soon as I get it scanned.

[petewilson]

Excellent banzai...Look forward to the "Hi-Res" version of the press photo
(Bet that costed a small fortune!) 

[Volpone]

Interesting.  The corner posts appear to be much taller on the early box than the later designs--I mean, they extend above the POLICE BO...er, POLICE signs farther.  There's still a little bit of the first roof step abover them, but not nearly as much (at least that's how it looks in that photo, things like that can be tricky, depending on the angle the camera was at).  I get an impression that the 1963 prop is a lot closer to the shape of the old timber boxes than the later concrete ones. 

[hb88banzai]

Absolutely, in fact I think I've said that before.

The Mark 1 Met Box is in many ways the one most like the first TARDIS prop, and in fact the continuing references throughout the series (both new and old) to the TARDIS' chameleon circuit created Police Box shell being made of wood is also spot on with the mostly timber Mark 1's. Seems the type most likely to have been hanging around in a scrap yard in 1963 as well.

The only parts that really stand out as being different are the shallow, metal flashed sign boxes (even after retrofitting with later signage) and the mostly pebbled window pane pattern (even after the windows were modified to be openable) - oh, and of course the high lock position (shared with the first concrete boxes as well). Note that though many Mark 1s retained the knob style door pulls, some have shown up in photos retrofitted with bow handles like the concrete boxes had.