If you’ve ever been on Earl’s Court Road, you’ve no doubt seen the TARDIS outside the tube station. No, it’s not a forgotten prop from the set of Doctor Who – it’s actually London’s last police telephone.
These concrete boxes, first introduced in the capital nearly a century ago, were a place for officers on the beat to make calls and take meal breaks, while a flashing siren told them when to contact their station. Landlines were not common until the second half of the 20th century so the public also had to use the boxes to report crime or fire.
At one point there were close to 700 scattered across London before they went out of fashion in the seventies due to the introduction of portable radios. But in 1995, PC John Hodges, a former Kensington and Chelsea police officer, campaigned tirelessly for the Home Office to let him build one on the same street he used to patrol.
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A year of paperwork and £13,000 later, his wish came true. By now, the wooden replica had become a community effort, with local businesses providing everything from a camera to doorknobs.
Transport for London even got involved, building the box at the nearby Lillie Bridge Depot and providing manpower to install it. At the time, Earl’s Court was considered a seedy haven for drink and drugs, so people were happy to get involved as they hoped crime would decrease.
The box provided a local base and allowed four extra police officers to be stationed in the area. It also had a direct line to Kensington Police Station, digital imaging equipment and a CCTV camera, but these were all disconnected in 2000 after proving rather unhelpful.
This experimental, high-tech structure was intended to be the first in a city-wide deployment of surveillance devices – but this was the only one that was ever completed. Unfortunately, no amount of technology can make it bigger on the inside like its famous counterpart, although this map would beg to differ.
Rumors have since swirled as to why the box was actually constructed, with the most popular being a trademark dispute between the Met Police and the BBC in the mid-1990s. It is said that the Earl’s Court box was built to power architect Gilbert Mackenzie Trench’s iconic 1929 design with the intention of allowing the Met to retain its rights over the intellectual property.
Coincidentally, or not, it was restored to its former aesthetic glory in 2005 – the same year Doctor Who returned to our TV screens after a 16-year hiatus. Mostly untouched since its doors were locked for the last time nearly 20 years ago, the curious blue box has taken on a sentimental significance in recent years.
A plaque on the door will tell you that it now stands in memory of PC Hodges, who died in 2022, aged 81, after a life dedicated to the people of west London. Without him, London’s last police box would never exist.
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