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Saving the Village Phone Box
After a campaign by villagers to keep the red phone box outside the Post Office as a street landmark, Crookham Village Parish Council purchased the box from BT, but without the phone. Councillor Brian Whyatt of CVPC is coordinating volunteer effort to restore the box to its former glory and encourage contributions to make it a visual attraction.
Brian Whyatt takes up the story...
After an assessment of the condition of the telephone box a list of parts was drawn up and Unicorn Restorations supplied the required parts.
The major component was a new hardwood door frame which is fixed through the cast iron frame of the door insert. The glass and glazing retainers needed to be removed in order to expose the fixing holes, this resulted in the damaging of further pieces of glass and their retainers.
The entire exterior of the box was stripped of old paint with a proprietary stripper and the whole outside was rubbed down to achieve a smooth finish.
To this was applied a red oxide primer and a first coat of original telephone box red paint.
The floor was leveled and tiled after which the new door frame was hung, a pair of rack bolts were fixed to the edge to enable the door to be locked.
The interior of the box was stripped of all the supports and enclosures leaving a clear space. The interior was rubbed down and washed to remove 50 years of grime, then painted as above.
The job of glazing was then started which included a new "telephone"
sign on the front face.
Upon completion the box will have a fine rub down
before applying the final coat of paint.
St Nicholas School have offered to
paint a seasonal montage which will be fixed to the rear wall and at christmas
we hope to purchase a solar powered christmas tree for the interior.
The
villagers have been very appreciative of the work being done to get this Iconic
image of the quintessential english village back to an acceptable condition, but
support in the carrying out of the work has been limited to very few. The Parish
should extend their sincere thanks to those.
I hope this gives an insight to
the restorative work and that we can between us win the prize currently being offered by BT for the best kept box !!!!!!!!!
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| Summer 2008 - a working phone box is threatened | Autumn 2008 - the campaign starts |
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| Summer 2009 - refurbishment starts after purchase by CVPC | |
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| September 2009 - refurbishment in progress | |
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| October 2009 - basic repairs complete and freshly repainted, but not yet finished | |