Newcastle, Northumberland Street, police box

HER Number:
16596

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Newcastle, Northumberland Street, police box

Place:
Newcastle

Map Sheet:
NZ26SW

Class:
Communications

Site Type: Broad:
Telecommunication Structure

Site Type: Specific:
Police Box

General Period:
Modern

Specific Period:
C20

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
A green London Metropolitan Police style police call box of pillar type located outside the Burtons Shop on the corner of Northumberland Street and Blackett Street. The box is shown a photo from the 1930s or early 1940s. These were 7 feet high pillars made from cast iron and timber. They were given to Newcastle in 1929. This was a permanently manned police location on a very busy road. Traffic lights were installed in the 1940s. The on duty policeman operated the traffic lights manually. Automatic lights were fitted in 1951 after the trams changed to trolley buses. The police pillar box was removed around 1952.

Easting:
2493

Northing:
6448

Grid Reference:
NZ24936448

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
Petra Caroline [Henderson]'s Police and Police Boxes Virtual Telephone Museum, Police Box/Pillar Newcastle (London Metropolitan Police) Style (1930), www.henderson-tele.com/police/boxes/bytown2.html; Immanuel Burton, 2006, A Brief History of the Police Box, November 2006 newsletter of the Construction History Society, www.policeboxes.com; Decentralization and the Police Box System by Frederick James Crawley, Chief Constable of Newcastle upon Tyne, The Police Journal, Volume 1, Number 1, January 1928; Peter Darrington, 2005, A History of the British Police Telephone Kiosk