Telephone Boxes

Where have all the telephone boxes gone?
I know that the old red telephone boxes have all disappeared from our streets, but the silver replacement boxes seem to be disappearing as well. I’ve been looking around at where the boxes still are, and there aren’t many. There’s one at the roundabout by the library, and one right at the bottom of the village where Manor way starts. But there’s nothing in between. Surely there used to be a phone box in the village? Where would it have been, anyone remember?

Driving West from the library, there isn’t one until you come to Hailey Park. Surely there was one in Llandaff North near the shops? And what about Tongwynlais and Rhiwbina?

So, who still uses a public phone? We used to guess that the only people using the box in St Margaret’s Road were making clandestine calls. But who else? Don’t the statistics say that most people have at least one or two mobile phones each.

It can only be a matter of time before the final few phone boxes disappear.

It got me thinking; Terry Chard tells me that the old telephone exchange was in a little terraced cottage in Old Church Road, and that people used to queue up outside to make a phone call to distant relatives at Christmas in earlier times. The exchange has gone now, but there’s an old photograph showing the telephone exchange sign over the front door, and the GPO junction box is still outside on the pavement. Does anyone remember it?

And when did you last send a telegram? Can you still send one? Another old photo shows the telegraph office in the village (where the Monmouthshire Building Society is now).

Where did all the telegraph poles go? Many of the old photos show telegraph poles (with multiple cross spars), looking like forest trees throughout the village. I think they also carried the electricity too. They’re all gone now. We’ve still got one outside our house, but it’s very modest and is for telephone and broadband.

And then there are the pillar boxes, we’ve still got them thank goodness. But are they the next ones to go? Does anyone write letters any more?

The pillar box in the village is an unusual one in that it is a ‘double’, with 2 slots. Obviously very busy not so long ago.

We’ve also got an Edward VIII pillar box, located in Heol Don. This is very rare, as I’m told that there are only 2 in the whole of Wales! The photograph below shows the royal cipher on the box. Why aren’t we making more of a fuss of such a special pillar box?
Many of the other boxes in the village are George VI or Elizabeth II, but does anyone know of any earlier ones? Are there any Victorian pillar boxes locally?

Apparently, pillar boxes started c1859 after the Royal Mail introduced stamps (the penny black!). Before then, people had to pay to receive the letter. That’s when letter boxes started to appear on the front door of houses, as the postman didn’t have to knock any more.

In 1861, Henry Lewis at Greenmeadow had, amongst his servants, an 11-year-old as an errand boy. I bet he had to take lots of letters to the post office. The Bookers had a letter-carrier on the staff at Melingriffith too.

There’s a lovely newspaper article in the Cardiff Times of 27th February 1866 regarding our local letter-carrier (not postman then!) who had been replaced:

Letter Carrying
The inhabitants of this thriving village are greatly benefitted by the change that has taken place in the letter carrier. The old carrier, in spite of many complaints made by individuals to his master, of the careless manner in which he executed his duty, was retained in office until about a fortnight ago, when as the old saying was verified by the master himself that seeing is believing. The carrier was then discharged as a matter of course; and it is satisfactory to find that his successor is a little fellow of stern and persevering habits. He delivers the letters at an average of threequarters of an hour, earlier than his predecessor

Just 160 years ago, but it seems like another age!

No doubt, we’re going to lose the pillar boxes and postmen (and women) before too long. Then even more of the ugly Amazon collection boxes will spring up throughout the area instead, and electric delivery vans will probably replace the postie

Not quite yet though (I hope)

 

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