ABC Wednesday 4: L is For...

...Listed Building

Red telephone boxes may be a British icon, but they're fast disappearing from our streets: our use of mobile phones for instance has drastically reduced the need for them. However, this telephone box won't be disappearing from Chippenham because it's a listed building.

English Heritage is the official public body which looks after the listed buildings register: in the majority of cases it's the owner's not their responsibility to look after the building itself. If a property is listed, it means it has a special architectural and/or historical interest and any proposed changes to the building require additional scrutiny within our planning system. You can find out a lot more about what listed building status means and the different grades awarded on English Heritage's website.

In 2000 and 2001 I was involved with Images of England. This was a Heritage Lottery funded Millennium project - completed last year - which aimed to photographically record over 350,000 listed buildings in England. I was allocated parishes within Chippenham and its surrounding villages where I took a representative photograph of each of the items on the listed buildings register for those areas. Mine and the photographs taken by hundreds of other volunteers are displayed on the Images of England website alongside the architectural listing description.

Lots of things not usually considered as buildings are listed: I've had to photograph tombstones, memorials, an historic walkway, dovecotes, milestones as well as the above phonebox. When I walked past it on Monday, I saw that it's changed slightly since I took the 'official' photograph. It now says on the outside that email and texts are possible as well as making the usual phonecall. However, when I looked inside I couldn't see how this was to be done as it still had the standard telephone. No sign of a keyboard, let alone anything that could be used for letters rather than numbers. However it did have one modern touch: there was the usual McDonald's carton left on the shelf.

For other Lovely ABC Wednesday posts, Look Lively and Leg it over there.

Comments

  1. EG CameraGirl7 April 2009 at 21:06

    Thank goodness at least one red phone booth has been saved. ;-)

    Yes, cell phones have definitely done in many phone booths n this side of the pond too. It's tough getting older - you notice these things. LOL

    MY ABC Wednesday post is at
    More of Me - EG

    ReplyDelete
  2. TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe7 April 2009 at 21:14

    Hi VP, it sure is an icon! I would love to have one of those in my garden :-) Great picure, well done.

    Have a great Wednesday and a Happy Easter too.

    Tyra

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown7 April 2009 at 21:37

    I always thought those red telephone boxes were the coolest : ). I love your picture. Hope your Easter season is a happy one!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7 April 2009 at 21:46

    What an interesting assignment that must have been!

    ReplyDelete
  5. themanicgardener7 April 2009 at 22:04

    I love it that this qualified as a Listed Building. Maybe the e-mail etc. abilities will appear suddenly; did the folks doing the signs just get there sooner than the ones actually installing the hardware?
    --Kate

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sylvia K7 April 2009 at 22:12

    Oh, I am so glad one was saved! And what a great and interesting post! Great photo! Have a great week and a Happy Easter!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Carrie7 April 2009 at 22:58

    That's great. The hubby works in that line of business (archaeology and planning permission etc) and was telling me that some of ours are listed too. I hope our old post boxes are too, the one my me is from King George's rein.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Elizabeth Musgrave7 April 2009 at 23:30

    Our house is listed. One day when you have nothing to do for a fortnight or so you could ask me to tell you about getting planning permission for sorting out what ensues when an ancient yew with a preservation order on it begins pushing over a listed building. On second thoughts, I am not sure I could bear to tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gail7 April 2009 at 23:37

    I love you volunteer work! You have the best time....gail

    ReplyDelete
  10. Gail7 April 2009 at 23:38

    I love you volunteer work! You have the best time....gail

    ReplyDelete
  11. Tumblewords:8 April 2009 at 04:07

    Great picture - haven't seen one of them in a long time - isn't it weird how things just disappear? And suddenly, someone says, 'Where'd THAT go?' Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Aunt Debbi/kurts mom8 April 2009 at 04:26

    Those phone booths are darling. Glad it gets to stay. Looks like your Micky D patrons have about as much sense there as they do in Texas.

    You may not need the translation, but Micky D = McDonald's

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous8 April 2009 at 04:45

    I was just glancing at your weather...it's exactly the same as here in NC...lol. Cold! Boo!

    I find this interesting that you photograph all these nontraditional structures. I'm glad the phone booth is listed as a historic building. I do relate it to your homeland. I don't think I've ever seen one over here.

    What is the first building/structure you think of when America comes to mind. I thought of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco--which is funny cause I live no where near that.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hermes8 April 2009 at 07:16

    They've all gone in my area and phone boxes are becoming scarce full stop. I tried to save one in Westbury but failed.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Esther Montgomery8 April 2009 at 08:07

    Making mobile phone calls in public is anti-social.

    There should be boxes like this liberally placed throughout all our cities where people can stand and speak when phoning their friends.

    They could be used for listening to music on earphones in too and should be painted bright red so people can find them easily.

    An advantage they'd have over the traditional version would be the absence of expensive equipment inside for vandals to vandalise. I reckon they'd catch on quite quickly.

    Esther Montgomery
    http://esthersboringgardenblog.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  16. Nutty Gnome8 April 2009 at 09:37

    Great post today VP - you do have an interesting life!
    I can only think of one red phone box left in Chesterfield now - and there were loads when we moved here 8 years ago. It's so sad to see them going. I'm glad yours is listed!

    ReplyDelete
  17. CanadianGardenJoy8 April 2009 at 12:07

    VP .. can you actually believe we have one RED phone both just like that in Kingston ??? .. I don't know if it is a functioning one but it stands out like nobody's business !
    I was wondering why no Dr. Who was mentioned ; )
    We have quite a few "listed" buildings in Kingston and one heck of a beautiful cemetery where our first prime minister is buried. It is a historical town here : )

    ReplyDelete
  18. Monica the Garden Faerie8 April 2009 at 14:05

    That Images of England project sounds both fun and worthwhile. Glad you participated in it and shared the Link! Lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mr. McGregor's Daughter8 April 2009 at 14:56

    I love the elastic definition of "building." It's great somebody thought to save at least one telephone box before they all disappeared.

    ReplyDelete
  20. jay8 April 2009 at 16:35

    It's good that some are being preserved, they were so much a part of our landscape, and it's a shame that they're not used any more.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Commonweeder8 April 2009 at 17:53

    Amazingly enough, someone in the next town over managed to buy one of these phone booths, and put it up. there is no phone inside, as far as I know, but it is startling to see in our country landscape.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anna8 April 2009 at 21:16

    I remember making many a call from one of those red boxes when I was a student :) Funnily enough I was thinking of Liverpool and some of its many listed buildings for my ABC post, but ran out of time to go into town to take some photos. I enjoyed your post VP !

    ReplyDelete
  23. the Intrepid Explorer (Maggi)8 April 2009 at 22:43

    Many years ago, about 20 I think, we were in Trier on holiday with the kids and my father. Wandering around the town, close to the Post Office, I said 'Oh look, there's a phone box!'. My children replied "What do you expect outside the Post Office?". But what I was really saying was that there was a 'PHONE BOX' one of our red ones, and what's more, there were 4 or 5 more outside the Pst Office (all working I must add). Lately I've seen more red boxes abroad than I've seen here at home. How sad is that?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Digital Polaroids8 April 2009 at 22:58

    Oh I love red booths!! There's only one where I live in Tucumán, Argentina, near an Irish pub.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Rose9 April 2009 at 01:35

    LOL, a McDonald's carton indeed:)

    Pay telephones are becoming more and more scarce in the US as well, but I'm so glad you still have some of these great phonebooths in the UK! When I chaperoned a group of students on a trip to London a few years ago, they had to have their picture taken in one of these iconic booths.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Susan Tomlinson9 April 2009 at 03:41

    Well, I suppose you do texting and emailing by taking your cell phone inside the red box. :-)

    Kind of cool to list a phone booth as an historic building. Maybe the commission could work on other British icons as well, like...Shepard's pie? A pint? Bubble and squeak?

    Sigh, my thoughts always turn to food when I'm trying to think...

    ReplyDelete
  27. James A-S9 April 2009 at 10:20

    Did you see how many red telephone boxes there were in the salvage yard where Toby got the GW shed doors?
    They could make roughly acceptable greenhouses or shower cubicles.

    ReplyDelete
  28. VP14 April 2009 at 08:37

    Hi - thanks for all your comments - it's about time I came over for a reciprocal visit. I'll just do a general reply here.

    BTW - quite a few of the older phone boxes are listed, so quite a few other towns will have them too. I'm not quite sure how the email and text facilities are meant to work - perhaps I need to ask BT!

    As Elizabethm says, a listed building means the owner has quite a few hoops to jump through if they want to alter it. Karen over at ArtistGarden will be able to trump that with the tricky listed building in a national park combination!

    As James pointed out they also appeared on Gardeners' World last week - in the salvage yard scene. Lots of people are using them for retro showers and sheds. I wonder if there's one on an allotment somewhere?

    ReplyDelete

New comments are not allowed.

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more