St Albans boxes

[lym]

Just come across a couple of pictures of the boxes from St Albans which I don't think have been posted here yet!

[starcross]

I thought the second photo looked familiar, and I found a higher resolution copy in my files. No idea where it came from however, but the time stamp on it was October 2016. I also a found a copy of the first picture too, same time stamp.

It's interesting that your copies are both newspaper clippings, while mine are scans of the original Photographs.

[dr hue]

My wife was at St. Albans Library today and found this, an historical Policing talk on the 27th November 2019:



looks like a 3D Print:



and this:



So now we know where one of the boxes is except it isn't. Its one more street further up.

Cunningham Avenue 1939







Also right down the end of London Road at the North Orbital intersection is another box which might be the other box:

1939:

[lorisarvendu]

So about here then.

[dr hue]

Actually I was beginig to have doubts that this was the location of the "second" box as the houses at the location looked too far away.

According to John Bunker's book:

"St Albans City Police put into operation  a total of twenty-four kiosks and pillars in September 1935"

Which got me having a look. So far I haven't found 24 yet but see my map for what I've found so far.

It now looks like the "second" box picture with the lady talking into the speaker probably comes from

Watford Rd:



This box is shown on a 1939 map but as a PTP on 1959 map.

These boxes look like type B309 made by Boulton and Paul of Norwich.

Map of what I've found so far:

[dr hue]

Updates or better pictures:

Updated map with more boxes and P.T.P. 'Nearby' boxes are ones that have been relocated.



Map 1939


Map 1959


Higher Res section of Watford Rd that was replaced by 1959 with a P.T.P.


3D picture I took last Saturday. Box was where lamp post is I think.




Inside St. Albans Box. Probably Watford Road.


New Details:

[mikey]

Here's an odd twist in the St Albans box story.



The site states that: " By 1939 it was considered that a stronger box would be required during wartime conditions, and so the wooden boxes were replaced by brick structures with reinforced concrete roofs.

The question is, where were these police boxes located?  I know of two sites: Sandridge Road (but that is a long road and a more precise location isn't yet known); and the junction of Beechwood Avenue (which had just been laid out) and Hatfield Road. "

http://stalbansowneastend.blogspot.com/2017/06/nine-nine-nine.html?m=1

Now I don't believe that a mere few years after investing in lots of wooden boxes the force would have demolished them all and replaced them with brick and concrete bunkers. Guess that new ones might have been made in this more ugly design. Interesting that the door might be the same as the wooden boxes and nice to have an indication of the colour too, at least in the 50s - 60s

[dr hue]

Sandridge Rd:






1940 Map : Old PCB . Can't find brick box on any map so far (near G.P). Hatfield Rd / Beechwood Ave

[mikey]

In front of the town hall, appears much lighter in colour than the photos of the others.

[dr hue]

Have so far not found this one on a map.

[mikey]

Me nether, but it is definitely the type of kiosk used in St Albans

[dr hue]

These photos are of St. Alban's Market 1954.

The "Box" has moved a few yards North along the street to approximately where the Belisha Beacon is in your photo (looking in the opposite direction).

I wonder if it was the Market Beadles's Box

For example Borough Market has its own "police force", the Beadles, who until the 1930s used to have powers of arrest and put offenders in the cells under the market.

The large building behind the box in your picture does indeed have cells in the basement!




The "Lamp" at thhe front on top looks more like a wooden finial.

[mikey]

Could be or possibly a police box having a second life as a market/ parking attendants hut like Sheffield. Which might explain the difference in colour.

[mikey]

Reportedly the two above are Sutton Road and the building in the background is the Ballito Hosiery Mill.

[dr hue]

1939 map ( does not appear on1963 map )




Today, mill now a Morrisons