Newcastle, St. Nicholas Square, police signal box

HER Number:
16591

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Newcastle, St. Nicholas Square, police signal box

Place:
Newcastle

Map Sheet:
NZ26SW

Class:
Communications

Site Type: Broad:
Telecommunication Structure

Site Type: Specific:
Police Box

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
Hexagonal police signal box with gas lamp on the roof. Used the gas lamp for signalling. Located in front of the town hall (east side of south elevation). Shown on a photo which must post-date September 1894, as the Rutherford Fountain is present. Pre-dates 1900 because the tram posts are not present. Not clear whether it is wooden or metal. The Rutherford Fountain was moved to the Bigg Market in 1903 and was replaced by a statue of Queen Victoria. Photos of the statue unveiling in 1903 do not show the police signal box so it had been removed by that date. A similar demo-model of a wooden hexagonal NTC police signal box is shown on a photo of Glasgow, taken in 1895.

Easting:
2494

Northing:
6405

Grid Reference:
NZ24946405

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
Petra Caroline [Henderson]'s Police and Police Boxes Virtual Telephone Museum, 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