Rose Hill Roundabout Box

[the pioneer]

Ooh! look what I found. Definitely somewhere in Surrey. Any ideas?

[petewilson]

Excellent Photo........Well Done!
Any clues to where it could be in the title?
How do you know its somewhere in Surrey?

Regards,

Pete

P.S. I'm sure Banzai will find it even before you reply! 

[hb88banzai]

I'm not that good  

Nice photo, though.

Surrey was mostly completed last week in the database/map (still a bit of T Division to find/enter). Don't remember it off hand, but the presence of the barbed wire topped fencing means it's probably private land, so the lovely view of the buildings in the background may well be obscured these days by development on that bare land (or worse, depending on where it is).

Looks like the Box is a Barnet type, so likely commissioned after 1935. Looks like an A.R.W. Siren mast over next to the Telephone Kiosk as well. Hmmm.

[chriskingbees]

My son, the phone box oracle, has a feeling the K6 might be Bromley, Kent

KB

[the pioneer]

I notice F.W. Woolworth in the background. So probably a main road. Should be traceable. The road in foreground looks like a duel carriageway. So logically just off picture left there is probably a roundabout. (30 miles an hour speed reduction)

Also, we have a GPO box next to Police Box then a telephone box (as well as the siren).

Quite a combination. Council Definite maps should give us insight.

[hb88banzai]

Success!  

It's W3 on Reigate Avenue at the Rose Hill Roundabout, St. Helier.

View of the buildings (now, as predicted, blocked from view by a newer one) --



The Box Site as it appears now --



Site street view URL:  http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Rose+Hill,+St+Helier,+London,+United+Kingdom&hl=en&ll=51.383955,-0.190909&spn=0.002223,0.010536&sll=51.462891,-0.184761&sspn=0.004191,0.00986&hnear=Rose+Hill,+Sutton,+Greater+London+SM1,+United+Kingdom&t=m&layer=c&cbll=51.383957,-0.190912&panoid=Jrr9ikOoDsbhRHGmgtynHA&cbp=12,139.36,,0,1.72&z=17

A blowup of the Box --

[petewilson]

See...Told you so...I knew you would find it in less than 24 hours banzai! 
Now could you try your "magic" on my 3331470.jpg !!   

Pete

[lym]

So I'm very new to learning about police boxes and it's still a very unknown thing to me, which is why I can't pinpoint an exact place for this box. And apologies if the image has been posted before! I did a quick search on eBay for postcards of police boxes to see if any recent listings had popped up, and I found this, apparently at the Sutton bypass in Surrey, which seems to be the A217.



This is a wonderful picture in its own right. Anyway, I did some light googling (and checking the Metbox map) but I wasn't confident in pinpointing an exact box since the layouts have all changed so much since then.

[galacticprobe]

Here's the photo cropped to focus on the post card. It gives us a larger image of the Box.


I also lightened the photo a little to bring out more detail on the Box. (If you open the image in a new window you can see it full size.)

Dino.

[russellsuthern]

Great pic.

I used to work in Sutton & took the A217 every day for 9 years.

I so wish that Police Box had still been there to brighten up my drive every day!!


Regards,


Russell

[hb88banzai]

Great pic, indeed! Been only a day since I did a search, but this cropped up in the meantime. Great find, regardless.

I believe this is probably a very early photo of W3 - http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=4427 before the building of the roundabout, looking southwest along Reigate Ave.

Similar POV in streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3839375,-0.1908118,3a,75y,243.1h,84.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snVL6ufn_H-shBIy7Ku0B6g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

All the buildings across the road are still there (plus a newcomer in the foreground and another in between a couple further along). Seems a perfect match for all those, and same with the road topography.

Orientation of the Mark 2 has changed in the later photos, probably due to a slight resite when the A.R.W. Siren was installed. Regrettably, the 1935 OS map doesn't seem to show this Box (happens much too often early on), so can't confirm a resite (unless the "TCB" marked on that map is really a "PCB", which also happens more often that one would like, though this seems doubtful since later OS maps show a "TCB" at that same location in the 1950s-1970s).

[Dalekoracle]

"I believe this is probably"...

You are far too modest Alan. Great spot by Lymerence, and a super bit of detective work there!

And what a smashing photo it is!

Mark

[hb88banzai]

Topics merged.

[lym]

Incredible work! It's no wonder I had so much trouble working out which box it was - the whole world around it had changed completely!

[Dalekoracle]

The row of houses is still there. Depth of field issues with the Google Street View cameras sometimes make an ID tricky... they look so much further down the road!