K8 Telephone Kiosk

K8 Telephone Kiosk, High Street, Hawkesbury Upton

This is a K8 telephone kiosk, designed by Bruce Martin and introduced from 1968. The kiosk is constructed of six cast iron parts and an aluminium door. All sides, including the door, feature large sheets of toughened glass set in rectangular frames with rounded corners. The kiosk has a square plan topped with a flat roof dome glazed with toughened glass on four sides. Each pane of the roof bears the word 'TELEPHONE' on a white background and has rounded corners. The entire structure is painted red.

The K8 was designed following a competition held by the General Post Office in 1965. Bruce Martin, who studied engineering at the University of Hong Kong before qualifying in architecture at the Architectural Association, had worked in the architectural department at Hertfordshire County Council and was part of the group responsible for the 'Hertfordshire Experiment', a progressive primary school building programme using pioneering construction techniques and prefabricated buildings.

The GPO's design brief required the kiosk to be easy to reassemble on site and straightforward to maintain and repair. It also stipulated that the design should last at least 50 years and be recognised as the UK's next generation of red telephone boxes. To meet these requirements, Martin analysed Scott's earlier K6 design closely and simplified it considerably. Whereas the K6 had numerous components, the K8 was reduced to just seven principal components. The design incorporated interchangeable parts, a significant advantage over the K6. Two roof types were developed—a lozenge shape and a cast-line—and this example has the latter type.

The K8 first appeared on British streets in 1968. By 1983, approximately 11,000 examples had been manufactured for the UK by the Lion Foundry. Only 12 K8 kiosks are known to have survived, making this a rare survivor of what was once a common fixture of the British street.