Tardis in Hastings

[type40plus]

Visited Hastings today and one of the first things I saw was a police box.  On closer inspection it was very crude and seemed to be about contacting the police.

[DoctorWho8]

Some background on this box.  Looks like it was instated last October.
http://www.sussex.police.uk/whats-happening/latest/news-stories/2013/07/30/police-box-lands-in-hastings
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.551914881534313.1073741831.438428876216248&type=1
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[type40plus]

Thanks Bill, I had a feeling it was probably already known to us.
As soon as I reached the town centre I saw the familiar shape in the distance and thought that looks like a Police Box.
When I was there yesterday there were a number of families taking photos, its all good publicity for the programme.

[Mark]

Kinda reminds me of the wooden model one from the early 90s which had a telephone inside.

[paul hayes]

There's a photo posted on Twitter today of a Met-style box in Hastings, although apparently it's only the girl in the photo's word that's where it was taken:

https://twitter.com/themindrobber/status/608586537849204736

[hb88banzai]

Yes, that's a re-post from the original photo posting/source here: https://twitter.com/Onionwoman/status/605626264586743808

Pete (petewilson), Mark (dalekoracle), and I have been following up on that. Hope to post something in the near future.

That photo (though this is a much better copy) when first posted to this site (actually the previous iteration of this site) a long, long time ago was originally tagged as being in Peckham, but when looking at OS maps a year or more ago I discovered that there is just no way it was any of the Peckham boxes, nor anywhere nearby. As it is definitely a Mark 2 Met Box, I assumed it was just somewhere else in the Met District that we had yet to identify, so this bombshell was, well, a bombshell. 

But then there's the little matter of High Wycombe...

[Dalekoracle]

It really is quite a conundrum, and this, combined with High Wycombe (you tease!) is a massive game changer in terms of Police Box research and history.

We know of the various regional variations, and always smile when we hear that "Police Boxes were a common sight on street corners around the UK" because, well, Tardis Style boxes were London (and Glasgow), weren't they...

But wow, its all change now. Maybe not as prolific as the London Met and Glasgow boxes, but it would appear that there were others out there!

Exciting times, very exciting times!

Mark

[petewilson]

This is one of the reasons I think this section should be open to all members (I am right in thinking this a "restricted" section?)
I used to live in High Wycombe for about 30 years and had heard the rumours about Tardis boxes that had been there in the 1960's..
Now with evidence of the locations and just a couple of photos have a little more to go on.......
What we need is a member who lives in the High Wycombe area (or Hastings come to think of it!) who is able to visit the main library and not only take a look at the "Local" Books on the town(s) but be able to spend a considerable few hours going through the local newspaper (still on microfiche?) as I'm sure there must a photo or two concerning the boxes (or posts!) over the years (1948-1969)
Unfortunately these newspapers do not exist on-line on any of the commercial sites!
WHO knows how many other English Towns/Boroughs had them as well........

Pete

[lorisarvendu]

Ok, now if that is a park in Hastings it might be possible to narrow down what road it could be.  The box is obviously sited with it's back to us and opens up onto the pavement on the other side.  There's a billboard directly opposite, and what looks like an industrial area behind (those look like factory ventilation outlets on the roof to the left of the billboard.

And what are those circular things behind and on either side of the tree?  They're stacked up like containers of some sort, and there's what looks like overgrown vegetation in front of them.  That and the picket fence below the billboard makes me think it's an area of waste ground.  Which means it's probably been built on by now...but any houses there now won't be older than 1950s.

I'm very interested in the tall post to the left of the box.  It seems to be on this side of the railings, so it can't be a lamp post.  It's the middle of the Cold War, so could it be an Air Raid Siren?

If so, does know if we can find a listing of air-raid siren locations in Hastings?  If one of them is situated just inside a park...

EDIT: According to a comment in this article, there was a Police Box on The Stade in Hastings:

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/nostalgia/the-women-who-earned-their-stripes-on-our-streets-1-5936692

[Senseidale]

It is very similar to the box that sits outside of Nottingham Police HQ ex of Old Market Sq Nottingham without the large bolt and pad lock.
 

[hb88banzai]

Sorry lorisarvendu, thought I had said, more or less.

The research as to most likely candidates in Hastings has largely already been done based on OS maps. Unfortunately, there isn't enough info in the photo to positively identify it, or to really refute it.

So far I've spotted some 13 Police Boxes and 4 Posts in various parts of greater Hastings, but 7 of these are of a different, rectangular type of Box of three different sizes; 5 of which are medium-large rectangular objects consistent with one we actually have a photo of (they were of brick and mortar construction), and 2 were even larger. The one on The Stade was huge, at least in the mid 50s and early 60s (much, much smaller, square and in a different position next to a larger building in 1938 and completely gone by the late 60s), and was just outside a beach (later a playground) area rather than in a park anyway. Regardless, there appear to have only been 2 Police Boxes in wooded parks in Hastings, and both were among the 6 that are consistent in size and shape on the maps with a Met Box, but one was in a residential area (St. Leonards Gardens) and couldn't have been the one pictured.

In the photo, as you say, there is something structural behind, but it could also be a railway bridge, and the most likely candidate I've found thus far is at the southern entrance to Alexandra Park, and so if indeed a bridge would be right about where the Queens Road Railway Bridge would be compared to that Box. Certain parts of the photo look like a fairly close match to that bridge and locale, but certain others don't (noting that old photos of the bridge show it looked more like the photo back then than it appears now since they've changed the top railing to an open style in recent years).

Main reason there is not enough info is those cylindrical things are in the way of many features, plus the bad positioning of the tree, A.R.W. Siren mast and the Box itself. If it is that bridge, then they are blocking all the tell tale details (and for some reason those cylindrical things are stacked on the track embankments). Could they be air raid protection for the bridge so long after the war? If not, then that's one of the details that seems to challenge the identification.

If anyone is on Twitter and wants to ask @Onionwoman if she remembers which park her photo was taken at without biasing things by mentioning our suspicions, please do.

By the way Pete, this Topic is in a section that's wide open to all comers, though as with the rest of this Forum it is time shifted 24 hours for non-members.

Oh, and as Senseidale has posted elsewhere, the pre-1960s Nottingham Police Boxes were big rectangular things as well (though timber), per both aerial and ground photos found of them.

[paul hayes]

Very interesting stuff. I suppose they can't have been all *that* common outside the capital, as there'd simply be too many photos and too much anecdotal evidence that would already be known about.

Certainly there can't have been any where I live, in Norwich - they'd have turned up in George Plunkett's photos of the city, for one thing.

[lorisarvendu]

Well I've snuck onto a forum for Hastings & St. Leonards on Sea and asked a question.  Got a few people replying to the thread and I've pointed them towards the Twitter post, so hopefully someone will be able to confirm or deny the location.

[hb88banzai]

Can't wait!!!

Meanwhile, I've been searching for pictures of the Stade Box, and it's become apparent that the OS Maps from the 1950s and later were just mis-marked - the object that would be the Police Box wasn't drawn, so the label looked like it was instead attached to a much larger building when it wasn't.

In fact I've found a couple pictures of it, and it was practically identical to the Wishing Tree brick and mortar box we already have a verifiable photo of (rectangular plan and about the size of a Sunderland/Newcastle Box), at least in the 1940s and 50s. Biggest difference appears to have been how the signal lamp was attached.

So that still leaves the 6 square plan Boxes, including the Alexandra Park Gate Box that may or may not be the one pictured in @Onionwoman's tweet.

Here's the Wishing Tree Box to get an idea of what at least one type of Hastings Box looked like (from the mid-1950s) --



As you can see, brick and mortar construction with a shingle roof. A GPO type signal lamp is visible rising from the roof at the front of the Box, which is at the left end in this photo.

[hb88banzai]

Decided to go back and check on the source of the old version we had of the photo that started this controversy and was reminded that it was originally posted by ironageman back in Dec 2006, in the "now and then" topic on the old TARDISrebuilders proboards site. More importantly, it was described by him as a photo he found while looking ("unsuccessfully") for a Peckham Box, not that it was one (don't know how it got pegged as a Peckham Box in the popular imagination ever since). Unfortunately he didn't note where he actually got the photo, nor any other contextual info, just that he didn't know where it was and there wasn't much to go on.

Here's that photo (originally labeled merely as "policebox") --



And this is the version tweeted back on the 1st of June by @Onionwoman (Tina Onions) --



And here it is with a bit of enhancement --



In the Tweet previous to this she says, "2/6/53 Coronation Day. Raining heavily if I recall, just like today. Took the train to Hastings to watch the event on TV, Aunt had 9in set."

Then in the same Tweet as the photo she says, "And here's me and mum in a park in Hastings, Coronation Day 1953, raining just like today. Doctor Who was there." And in a response to a comment to a subsequent Tweet about this photo she elaborates with, "...it was just a snap pic taken on a Box Brownie by my older sister. I cropped it for Facebook posting. My dad developed it."

Seems an awful lot of specific detail for this to be easily ascribed to a mistaken memory.