{"id":1794,"date":"2026-01-05T21:07:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/?p=1794"},"modified":"2026-03-20T21:02:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:02:54","slug":"bt-adopt-a-kiosk-phone-box-library-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/bt-adopt-a-kiosk-phone-box-library-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Phonebox Library"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Up and down the country you\u2019ll spot these phone boxes in many a quaint village. There won\u2019t be a phone in there though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ll be full of books!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books that the locals (or anyone passing by) has placed in there for you to read. Generally, if you take one you should leave on there. That\u2019s generally good gracious British manners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve never come across this in the City though. I doubt it\u2019d last. Someone would take all the books, another would be sick in there and eventually some feral youth would vandalise it because\u2026 you know (they are hard!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did this come about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I have spoken to an oldie at one of these boxes and they filled me in. As landlines declined in popularity (and use) maintaining and upgrading the phone boxes turned out to be a rather expensive and annoying affair for our guys at British Telecom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what happened next? In 2008 clever people at BT came up with an idea. The \u2018Adopt a Koist\u2019 program. That meant local communities, parish councils and charities could adopt a phonebox for just \u00a31. Bargain!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I forget some have been used to house defibrillators too (them heart electric shock machines that paramedics use on that old TV program \u2018Casualty\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next thing you know we\u2019ve got these free libraries. Sometimes they\u2019ll have toys and a noticeboard for local stuff going on too. So far over 1500 have been adopted. Although in the 90\u2019s we had over 100000 of them dotted around the country so in the grand scheme of things there aren\u2019t many that have been adopted but look at it from a different angle. We have over 1500 free local libraries doted around small communities up and down the country. HOWEVER, only around 11000 of these phone boxes were the traditional red phone boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For clarity I shall admit that I have on occasion kept books in the van for the very reason that I may come across one and take a book whilst leaving one of my own unwanted books. About dinosaurs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep a lookout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Up and down the country you\u2019ll spot these phone boxes in many a quaint village. There won\u2019t be a phone in there though. They\u2019ll be full of books! Books that the locals (or anyone passing by) has placed in there for you to read. Generally, if you take one you should leave on there. That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,20,21,23],"class_list":["post-1794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures","tag-courier","tag-logistics-2","tag-sameday","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1794\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frigate-express.co.uk\/ourblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}