K6 Telephone Kiosk

K6 Telephone Kiosk, Hinton Hill, Bramdean

This K6 telephone kiosk is a standardised design of cast iron and glass. It is painted red with long horizontal glazing in the door and sides. The crowns situated on the top panels are applied rather than perforated. Rectangular white display signs reading TELEPHONE are positioned beneath the shallow-curved roof. The kiosk remains in current use as a functioning telephone kiosk, though fitted with modernised internal equipment.

The kiosk stands behind a low brick wall and is situated opposite a group of listed buildings: Nos. 4 and 5 Hinton Hill (Grade II) and No. 6 Hinton Hill (Grade II).

The K6 telephone kiosk represents a milestone of twentieth-century industrial design. It was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935 for the General Post Office to commemorate King George V's Silver Jubilee. The K6 developed from Scott's earlier and highly successful K2 telephone kiosk design of 1924, which drew on Neo-classical inspiration. The K6 was more streamlined in aesthetics, more compact, and more cost-effective to mass-produce. Giles Gilbert Scott (1880–1960) was one of the most important modern British architects, with celebrated commissions including Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and Battersea Power Station. The K2 and K6 telephone kiosks represent a thoughtful adaptation of architectural tradition to contemporary technological requirements. Over 70,000 K6s were eventually produced. Many were replaced with plainer kiosk types during the 1960s, but many still remain as iconic features of Britain's streetscapes.

The telephone kiosk is sited at a location likely in use for telephone services since the early twentieth century, evidenced by an early twentieth-century enamelled sign on a telegraph pole immediately opposite, outside No. 4 Hinton Hill. This traditional sign displays the lettering: 'TELEPHONE, TELEGRAMS MAY BE TELEPHONED'. The sign appears contemporary with the K6 kiosk or may even predate it. This connection with associated historic street furniture is enhanced by the former history of No. 6 Hinton Hill as a post office. Originally an early nineteenth-century cottage, No. 6 Hinton Hill was used as a shop and post office from the end of the nineteenth century until sometime in the twentieth century. It is shown as a post office on Ordnance Survey maps of 1891 and 1909. An early twentieth-century posting box bearing the reign mark GR still survives set into the wall of this building.