V21--The Box along the fence line on Verdun Road, opposite Washington Road in Castelnau.

This was one of the original 43 experimental installations of mostly timber Mark 1s in Richmond and Wood Green in late 1929/early 1930. This particular Box eluded identification for some time due to so little info being in the photographs we had available.

The Box first came to light a long time ago, being posted simply with the cryptic title "Beaconsfield" --



I'm now pretty sure that whoever posted it meant to write "Becontree," were the first 2 prototypes were installed in December 1928, but that error led to quite a bit of head scratching as there were no "Beaconsfield" boxes.

It was found that this photo actually originally came from John Bunker's book The Rise and Fall of the Police Box, the caption reading simply "An early wooden Metropolitan Police Box used with the new scheme c. 1930. Credit: Metropolitan Police."

Subsequently, another early publicity shot including a constable in the photo came to be seen as the same Box (here enhanced a bit) --



There were another couple of versions of this picture that had appeared in period books --





Ironageman posted the first of these last photos and started an interesting sub-thread regarding the oddities of this Box that are visible in the photos. That sub-thread can be followed beginning here: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=2090.msg45006#msg45006

One observation was about the whited out phone door, which should have been clear glass in an early photo of a Mark 1. A lot of speculation ensued, including that it might be broken and in need of repair, etc, thought possible due to the observed decrepit state of the paint, or that it was an early or temporary sign of some kind. A lot of speculation also ensued about when the photo was taken, where the Box was (Richmond or Wood Green), and even that it might be a prototype (in which case it might be somewhere else in the MP district entirely). The thought it might be a prototype seemed to be bolstered by the observation that there was a very strange thing going on with the windows, in that they seemed much taller than with other Mark 1s, and that the panels below seemed to be shorter to compensate. There was also the complete lack of any signage on the Box, save for the perforated metal "POLICE" signs up top.

While I can only speculate on the cause of the odd proportions of parts of the Box, I discovered in memos written prior to the rollout of the Boxes in 1929 that the white in the phone door window was almost certainly indicative that the photo was merely taken before the Box was activated. The memo states that all Boxes are to have a white piece of paper in the clear phone door so as to obscure the telephone inside and so dissuade any members of the public from thinking it was connected and in use. These were to come off all Boxes on the day of activation. As to the signage, further memos indicated that the telephone instruction sign underneath the phone door wasn't initially on the Mark 1's. It wasn't realised they might even be necessary until early 1930, and not affixed until some months after that. Also, it was found that the St. John badges weren't affixed until each Box was fitted with a first aid kit, which wasn't accomplished until around March 1930.

All this meant that despite the seeming poor condition of the paint, the photo was almost certainly taken prior to the 2nd of December 1929 if in Richmond, or the 20th of January 1930 if in Wood Green.

I then discovered a newspaper article which showed another photo of this Box that seemed to settle the location issue due to dating. From The Star issue of 29 November 1929 --



Closeup scan of the inset photo plate and caption:



There was something else visible here, and that's a bit of what appeared to be a street sign behind the Box in this view, but was a bit too blurry from the half-tone dots to tell what it said.

With all these facts and what was visible in the photos I thought it might be V21 on Verdun Road, but there still wasn't quite enough information to adequately confirm this, especially as the wall currently at this location is a much more robust structure.

Well, I finally found reasonably good scans of two of these Met press photos, and they cinched the ID for us as that bit of a road sign was definitive.

Two views of the Box prior to activation, taken circa November 1929 --





The sign clearly reads "...UN ROAD". Now, the only site in the first 43 Boxes (or the for 10 possible earlier prototypes for that matter) that has a road name ending in "UN" is V21 on Verdun Road, Castelnau, part of Richmond sub-division and activated 2 Dec 1929. As further confirmation, it was also one of only a very few Boxes situated next to a fence line like this.

Note that you can see the paper has been roughly taken off of the phone door glass and put behind the telephone for these photos, so the Box would look more like it would when commissioned.

So, while we can only speculate on the whys of its unique architectural features (an early Box off the assembly line, a misaligned jig, etc), which are quite unlike any of the other Mark 1s or even prototypes, we can at least now say it was part of the main production run of Mark 1's erected in the Richmond area beginning in the middle of 1929.

A streetview of the Box site from Sep 2008 --



URL: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4814299,-0.2422791,3a,75y,281.91h,84.08t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sIIeZ4yHH4Qm93oRZ0RUE4w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en


Here are a couple of OS map extracts that show this Box's location:

From 1935 (P.C.B. at centre frame) --



From 1952 (PCB at centre frame) --

Fantastic!!!

"Top hole old man" as they would of said when reading that newspaper back on that cold and windy Friday in November 1929!

Excellent article (and photo's) Alan.......

Great work yet again!

Thanks Alan.

I have to say that those last pictures remind me of how the TARDIS prop sometimes looks in photos of location filming - all propped up level with blocks of wood etc.

I have a soft spot for this very early wooden box, it has a certain charm to it. Nice to see it's location finally pinned down!
That spherical(?) lamp looks either like a spaceship on landing legs, or a crystal ball on a stand  Also... flashing red? Wouldn't have looked out of place on The Master's Tardis (heck, I'm almost surprised it's not one of the many versions the Newberry sported!)