Bristol Police Box
- Thread starter mikey
- Start date
As already mentioned above Bristol City went for Posts (I guess like the City of London)
The interesting thing the posts looked like this...
Blitz ravaged High St, Bristol City Centre about 1947.
Original colour Kodachrome slide taken by Herbert Almond Postlethwaite, Part of the 250 image Postlethwaite collection on the Bristol Museum website.
The interesting thing the posts looked like this...
Blitz ravaged High St, Bristol City Centre about 1947.
Original colour Kodachrome slide taken by Herbert Almond Postlethwaite, Part of the 250 image Postlethwaite collection on the Bristol Museum website.
mikey
Member
kutan66 said:
These are the GPO’s PA1 pillars, they were installed all over the country before being superseded by the PA2 and PA3.
Here’s a pic of two next to each other in Luton
What’s interesting in terms of Bristol is that they had oddly modified versions of the PA1 for the Bristol Ports Police. I had a photo somewhere but can’t find it just now.
There were Fire Alarm pillars in lots of towns and cities which were much earlier than these and definitely more for the fire brigade than the police. They didn’t contain a phone just a switch to operate the alarm.
Here’s one in Blackpool
A few towns had their own designs of Police Call Pillars dating from before the GPO’s standardised designs. The GPO supplied the PA1s in red because they happened to have quite a lot of red paint to hand!
Here’s a non GPO designed PTP in Shrewsbury
mikey
Member
Good afternoon everyone,
I have now been through the files held by the archive. All 185 documents. After 182 documents I was starting to give up hope, but then right at the bottom was what I was looking for. I am pleased to report that Bristols boxes ARE Trench boxes of the early design. The archive have two photos, the box is near identical to the photo posted further up thread by Dr Hue of the wooden and concrete type.
I signed a copyright document with the archive assuming responsibility for any breech of copyright arising from my taking copies of the docs. So I’m sorry to say I won’t be posting it here just now. I have however asked their permission to post it. I have also suggest they might like to publish the pictures.
In the meantime here’s a non copyright infringing sketch I did of the box in the photo.
The windows appear to be leaded with all pains of glass pebbled bar the coloured centre bottom pain. The windows are longer than the lower three panels again consistent with the early Met boxes. The word police on the top sign appears to be perforated for ventilation. The signal light is a clear glass globe with the bulb visible inside. The roof and panels are a lighter colour, possibly white and the rest of the box is a darker colour, possibly blue.
So there you have it. The Met’s Trench boxes were used in more places than London and High Wycombe.
I have now been through the files held by the archive. All 185 documents. After 182 documents I was starting to give up hope, but then right at the bottom was what I was looking for. I am pleased to report that Bristols boxes ARE Trench boxes of the early design. The archive have two photos, the box is near identical to the photo posted further up thread by Dr Hue of the wooden and concrete type.
I signed a copyright document with the archive assuming responsibility for any breech of copyright arising from my taking copies of the docs. So I’m sorry to say I won’t be posting it here just now. I have however asked their permission to post it. I have also suggest they might like to publish the pictures.
In the meantime here’s a non copyright infringing sketch I did of the box in the photo.
The windows appear to be leaded with all pains of glass pebbled bar the coloured centre bottom pain. The windows are longer than the lower three panels again consistent with the early Met boxes. The word police on the top sign appears to be perforated for ventilation. The signal light is a clear glass globe with the bulb visible inside. The roof and panels are a lighter colour, possibly white and the rest of the box is a darker colour, possibly blue.
So there you have it. The Met’s Trench boxes were used in more places than London and High Wycombe.
lym
Member
The revelation of this is genuinely one of the most exciting things I've experienced this whole year, it's been thrilling seeing it unfold 
It's wild that something like this could just go completely forgotten for so long, but I'm really grateful for the work of the people here who brought it back to light.
It's wild that something like this could just go completely forgotten for so long, but I'm really grateful for the work of the people here who brought it back to light.