V20 Castelnau & Ferry Road Box

[petewilson]

Side tracking....
Do we know why these "Mark 5" boxes came into existence...They look so bland!
Was it to save money and when exactly did they start to appear?

Pete

P.S. Yes looking forward to the un-watermarked Press Photo......Look's like it's gonna be good!! 

[hb88banzai]

What, no comment on that Press photo?

As to the Mark 5's, the best info we have is from realboxmike, and can be found here: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=6973.0

I suspect the plainness is partly due to the stink the Royal Fine Arts Commission raised just before the war over the Trench designs for both the original Met Box and Met Post, which was raised again in the late 1940s. I won't go into the very unfavourable views they expressed here (perhaps its own Topic in time), but I really think it was more that they weren't consulted beforehand like they were for the K2 GPO Kiosk.

Though the Met seemed a bit perplexed and annoyed, they nonetheless took the issue seriously and even contemplated the possibility of commissioning a new design before the War intervened.

[petewilson]

Interesting little thread that I must of missed (so any box installed or replaced after 1953 would of been a dreary Mark 5)
It would be nice to have some sort of Time Line chart of when each Mark (1-5) came and went.......

[Volpone]

That photo, posted Feb 2013 is just wonderful.  I'm glad the browser didn't open to the newest post just now, because I either missed it or had forgotten it.  The box is on display better than you could hope for and it's such a nice street scene around it.  And it looks in a pretty good state of maintenance in the early blue paint scheme.  This one looks great in black & white, but I'm imagining how it would look in color.

[hb88banzai]

Ah yes, this one --

Another photo finally recognized as being this Box (thanks Pete and Mark) --

As it happens, a hard copy of that photo is also in my queue to scan as well, so a much better copy will eventually be posted here. Always loved that one.

Interesting little thread that I must of missed (so any box installed or replaced after 1953 would of been a dreary Mark 5)

It would be nice to have some sort of Time Line chart of when each Mark (1-5) came and went.......

A little out of date now that we have hard dating for the Mark 5, but there's this...



So, recent photo finds would probably change the Mark 3 dating to 1935-c1940, the Mark 4 would be changed to c1940-c1953 (have to look up to see if the last install date can be deduced from available Met List data) and I would add the Mark 5 as 1954-1965 (even though it would throw off the symmetry to this "Usual Suspects" lineup). Oh, and perhaps a circa late 1934 to early 1935 for the Trench plans as they almost certainly date from that time period.

EDIT: Looking at the original Met List, the last initial installations before the Mark 5's came on line were in 1949; however, as most of the last remaining Mark 1's were being replaced in the late 1940s to early 1950s (per memos), as well as presumably any early Mark 2's that were wearing out, it isn't possible to get a hard cutoff date for the last of the Mark 4's with the information that's currently available.

[Dalekoracle]

"What, no comment on that Press photo?"

yes... scan it and post it!

LOL.

Seriously though, what a lovely photo it is. Really looking forward to seeing the full image.

[hb88banzai]

A view of the Mark 5 replacement Box from the other side (capture courtesy of petewilson) --

[dr hue]

This could be the box used in

http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=6366.msg78427#msg78427

[alexcutler]

So it looks like this site was lucky enough to have a timber MKI prototype, a MKIII and a MKV over time?  I assume there were some 'traffic accidents' that required replacements?