K8 Kiosk at Northwick Park Station

Summary

K8 telephone kiosk

Reasons for Designation

The K8 telephone kiosk at Northwick Park Station is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for Bruce Martin’s meticulously simplified and updated design, a classic work of C20 industrial design which is immediately recognisable as the post-war iteration of Scott’s earlier K2 and K6 kiosks;

* as a nationally rare survival of a once common telephone kiosk, first introduced in 1968.

Historic interest:

* the K8 is the last generation of the red public telephone box, making an important contribution to the understanding of the historic development of the telecommunications industry in England before the introduction and subsequent widespread use of mobile phones;

* as an example of the K8’s adoption for internal use on the London Underground network.

Group value:

* sited in the public realm on the station platform, it has group value with the unlisted station building with which its use is associated.

History

The K8 was built to a design by Bruce Martin, following a competition held by the General Post Office (GPO) in 1965. Bruce Martin (1917-2015) studied engineering at the University of Hong Kong before qualifying in architecture at the Architectural Association. He joined the Hertfordshire County Council architectural department and was jointly responsible for the ‘Hertfordshire experiment’: a progressive building scheme for primary schools. Morgan’s Junior School in Hertford, designed by Martin, is Grade II* listed (List entry: 1119734).

The main requirement for the K8 in the GPO’s design brief was that it should be easy to re-assemble on site, and easy to maintain and repair in the future. This condition was met by the use of cast iron and toughened glass. The brief also stated that the kiosk had to last for at least 50 years and be recognised as the next generation of telephone boxes in the UK. As a result, Bruce Martin analysed Giles Gilbert Scott’s K6 design meticulously, simplifying and reducing its high number of components. His K8 design offered a simplified contemporary approach with clean lines and curves that eschewed the explicit neo-classical references of Scott’s designs.

The K8 was subsequently given only seven principal components. The original Mark 1 'lozenge' roof design consisted of plain, framed signage panels. In 1976 one of the manufacturers, the Lion Foundry Co Ltd, requested that the roof design be modified as they had difficulties in casting this component without cracks appearing. This resulted in the Mark 2 design which had a ‘cast line’ roof with thickened lower edges incorporating the lozenge shaped framing of the signage. The kiosk at Northwick Park station is of the original Mark 1 design. 11,000 K8s were introduced onto the United Kingdom's streets by 1984, after which the majority were replaced by the KX100.

The role of some K8s on the London Underground differ from those elsewhere. They were intended for use by station staff and were inaccessible to the public. They housed London Underground internal telephony and were painted different colours in reference to their use and the type of equipment housed within. In later years they were painted to match the colour scheme of the station. These colours also distinguished the kiosks from other K8s, indicating that they were not for public use.

Details

K8 telephone kiosk, produced to designs by Bruce Martin for the General Post Office from 1968.

MATERIALS: cast iron, aluminium and glass.

DESCRIPTION: a Mark 1 K8 telephone kiosk, square in plan with six cast iron parts: a floor plate, a roof dome and four side panels. The panel to the rear is solid cast iron, the two adjoining panels each hold a large pane of toughened glass in a rectangular frame with rounded corners, and the fourth holds an aluminium door, glazed to match the side panels. The roof dome is a Mark 1 design with plain, framed signage panels. The two panels on both the north and south faces are marked 'Private'. The kiosk is painted white.

It stands on the island platform in between Platform 1 (Northbound) and Platform 2 (Southbound) at the western end of Northwick Park station.

Sources

Books and journals
British Telecom, , Britain's Public Payphones - A Social History, (1984), p24-27
Johannessen, N, Telephone Boxes, (1994), p17
Linge, N, Sutton, A, The British Phonebox, (2017), p42
Stamp, G, Telephone Boxes, (1989), p25, 83, 93
Linge, N, Hurley, A, Johannessen, N, 'In Celebration of the K8 Telephone Kiosk – Britain’s Last Red, Cast-Iron Phonebox' in Industrial Archaeology Review, , Vol. 42, (21 October 2020), p141-153
'The smallest building: The genesis of the Mark 8 telephone box' in RIBA Journal, (August 1969), p320-325

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