Cattistock’s Red Telephone Box Restoration
The images above show, on the left, the Telephone Box in it’s original position in the village, and right, in its restored state standing proudly in the sunshine, outside the Fox and Hounds.
The Fete Committee purchased the box from Four Gates in West End Lane where it had stood for many years It is I believe, the original phone box from the village that was outside Tillands Knap in the square. Rupert Cake used to live there and remembers it well. (Thank you, John Willows, for the photo, above left.)
At some point in the nineties BT decided to upgrade to a new modern phone box and responded to a request to move it somewhere more central and not outside a living room window. The site chosen was outside the Fox and Hounds where the restored box now houses a defibrillator.
The phone box is a model K6 which was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and this model stems from 1935 Jubilee Kiosk for King George V silver jubilee. Our model is a pre-1955 and we know this due to the crowns on the kiosk as our example is displaying the “Tudor Crown “from George the V.
The telephone Kiosk has been stored at Simon Goodall’s barn and work commenced on assessing the cost and level of restoration required.
You can see from the pictures that it was in a sad state of repair. On consultation with the Fete Committee, they allocated funds to restore the kiosk to house the defibrillator. So, the task began to make it watertight and presentable to the village.
Funds from the Fete secured new windows, frames and paint. As with everything in life it is all about the preparation and I can tell that over 70 years of repeated painting has been tough going.
The windows that need replacing are all out and the frames cleaned out of extremely rock-hard putty. In an ideal world we would have sand blasted it, but funds would not allow that, and it would have to be completely taken apart.
After many hours of rubbing down, we were 75% there and hoped in the following two weeks to be ready for the painting of 2 pink undercoats and of course, 2 lovely coats of Post Office Red. Then with new toughened glass windows and a few other sundries, we hoped to have it in place by Christmas 2019.
We discovered that the phone kiosk was probably produced in 1949 and made by the Carron Company Stirlingshire. It has several upgrades during its life, in particular the security of the window frames, as locals used to steal the glass for cold frames, along with light bulbs!
The door is now off and surprisingly it’s a Teak and Metal Frame which Phil Evans is repairing skilfully. My principle helpers were Ian Hobday and Simon Goodall, but other helpers were on hand for the painting party, subject to Covid.
It was all going so well when lockdown scuppered the plans for a painting party.
The K6 box was ready for painting and due to covid caused a delay on the start of the primer undercoat. Severe rain and wind penetrated the barn with northerly winds which in turn rusted the exposed metal.
Onwards and upwards now with a coat of rust inhibitor on the whole box, and you can see in the pictures that when applied to rust it goes blue/black. With that task complete, and a light sand and degrease it was finally ready for the first coat.
Two coats of fresh undercoat and I think it looks very fetching in pink. You will have noticed that we have not cut in to all the windows yet. With the five coats applied, it will be 384 cutting in for small windows and 200 for the large. Not a job I am relishing but I have help from Ian Hobday who has been helping in the most covid safe environment.
Now we are hoping the weather allows, and temperatures stay about 10°c, that we nay have it installed for the carol service.
May the weather gods prevail
The beast from the east and very cold temperatures did delay the final push to get the beautiful K6 original village phone box back to a prominent proud position in the village.
Now it’s here and a few minor jobs to complete before the defibrillator has a new home.
I had a count of roughly how many hours were spent by all the helpers. I would say more than 140 hours of initial knuckle scraping graft to get the 70 years of paint removed to a good surface to repaint and restore
Here is some trivia some of what we did
99 glass panels to either refurbish or replace with toughened glass
2.5 five litres of pink primer followed by 2.5 litres of glorious deep post office red
Gold paint for the crowns expertly applied with the steady hand of Ian Hobday
Black plinth and a white ceiling
One angle grinder burnt out
30 meters of sandpaper
10 Litres white spirit
3 tubes of glazing silicone
10 paint brushes
5 band aids
Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generous funding from the Cattistock fete committee. I am grateful to Wayne Briggs and Peter Hunt.
So how much did it cost? With the initial purchase of the kiosk and all the reglazing, paint, and sundries the total spent was £1300.
Lastly, I could not have completed this project on my own. I had some great help from Ian Hobday and specialist help from Phil Evans on repairing the door, and Simon Goodall for allowing us to use his barn, and offering expert advice such as “you’ve missed a bit”
I hope the village and visitors enjoy this iconic piece of history sitting proudly outside the village pub.
If anyone would like to discuss this restoration, or pick our brains for advice on your project, email Terry White.
