Buy a red phone box - for £2,000

Just like the pub and the village green, red phone boxes are a British icon known the world over. Now, for the first time in 25 years, some of the historic boxes are up for sale to the public.

BT is selling off 60 old K6 or Jubilee red phone boxes - classics that have stood on our streets for 75 years.

The original cast iron K6 red phone boxes have been refurbished to a high standard and finished in their original red and black livery. Prices start at £1,950.

In 2002 there were 92,000 BT phone boxes on our streets, but now there are just 51,500 kiosks, including 11,000 traditional red phone boxes, across the UK.

According to BT payphone use is on a steep downward slope - calls have declined by more than 80 per cent in the last five years and around 60 per cent of phone boxes lose money.

Katherine Ainley, general manager for BT Payphones, said: “Now you can buy a twentieth century design icon that’s famous around the world for your home or garden or you could even buy one as a gift for the person you know who has everything.”~


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BT last sold red boxes direct to the public in the mid 1980’s when thousands of old K6s were sold off at public auctions as part of an extensive payphone modernisation programme.

The K6 celebrated its 75th birthday last year. The phone box was introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V.

The Jubilee kiosk, as it became known, was designed by English architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960). The Jubilee became the first genuinely standard telephone box to be installed all over the country. By the end of production in 1968 there were nearly 70,000 in Britain.

Sir Giles was also responsible for designing Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral, Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station, now home to contemporary art gallery Tate Modern.