Ickenham Village Box

[petewilson]

Here's yet another shot of the box taken sometime in the 1950's....

Pete

[realboxmike]

As promised, a hopefully clearer resolution photo of the Ickenham Box from about 1937-ish with a repainting programme of some sort going on....

[petewilson]

Thanks Mike......
My theory is this is a photo of the box shortly after Install,
So we are seeing the raw concrete colour plus the non-concrete materials (Door and lamp) in their original colours (or at least in some sort of weather protection coating?)
What's even more interesting Mike is both myself and banzai have discovered that Met Boxes were installed outside the London Metropolitan Area including my old home town of High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) and also Hastings (Sussex) there may even be other towns that "opted" for this design (be it on a small scale)

Pete

[realboxmike]

I believe that you are both right. I have a poor-ish photo of the dock area of Dover from the 1950s with a definate Met style Box on the forecourt. As soon as I can dig I will post it (Where do you think would be the best [lace to post it?)

[petewilson]

The best place would be a new topic in here Mike;-

http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?board=135.0

banzai managed to get some aerial photo's of one of The High Wycombe Boxes and I managed to get their locations  (3 boxes and 3 posts)

[Volpone]

Thanks Mike......
My theory is this is a photo of the box shortly after Install,
So we are seeing the raw concrete colour plus the non-concrete materials (Door and lamp) in their original colours (or at least in some sort of weather protection coating?)
What's even more interesting Mike is both myself and banzai have discovered that Met Boxes were installed outside the London Metropolitan Area including my old home town of High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) and also Hastings (Sussex) there may even be other towns that "opted" for this design (be it on a small scale)

Pete

The only hole in this theory I can come up with is that it seems like the grass around it would be tore up from the installation.  But the alternative is that it is during a repainting and 1) 1937 is too early for that and 2) then why wouldn't there be dropclothes and scraped paint about.  Oh, and 3) did they ever strip them down to bare concrete/metal/wood for repainting. 

So I guess that's a lefthanded way of saying your theory is actually the most plausible. 

[lorisarvendu]

What's even more interesting Mike is both myself and banzai have discovered that Met Boxes were installed outside the London Metropolitan Area including my old home town of High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire) and also Hastings (Sussex) there may even be other towns that "opted" for this design (be it on a small scale)

Pete

Is this a reference to the infamous "Hastings Police Box" photo from Twitter?  Has anyone found any other evidence that this isn't just an incorrectly-remembered event in that lady's life?  I joined a Hasting Historical forum and also contacted Hastings Public Library.  Nobody on the forum knew about a Police Box in their town, which was very surprising as I'm sure someone would have remembered it; and the Library could find no information at all.

[petewilson]

The only hole in this theory I can come up with is that it seems like the grass around it would be tore up from the installation.  

When I look at the photo that's exactly what I do see.......Freshly laid soil (Maybe grass seed), new kerbing and newly planted Young Trees with supports
Also the ground has been up-turned over by the GPO Box as well......

[Volpone]

...and there's a protective iron...sleeve(?) for a tree that is either nonexistent of was just planted and hasn't grown into it yet.  I think you've got it. 

[scruffy57]

Another photo

Scruff

[Dalekoracle]

I've got the unwatermarked version of that - the cropped version (at a much higher res) was posted above in the thread.

[petewilson]

Another photo

Scruff

It's the same as the hi-res photo Mike posted but with a horrible watermark across it! 

[galacticprobe]

...but with a horrible watermark across it!  

Seriously... it's blocking about 1/3rd of the box from our view!

Dino.

[Dalekoracle]

As Pete mentioned above, Mike posted a lovely high res cropped version. Heres the whole photo (uncropped unwatermarked) but still no where near as good a resolution as Mikes photo

[hb88banzai]

Really nice to see the whole photo in context, regardless. Always interesting to see photos of boxes in the process of being installed.