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A police box is a public
telephone kiosk A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...
or
callbox A call box or callbox is a (usually metal) box containing a special-purpose direct line telephone or other telecommunications device which has been used by various industries and institutions as a way for employees or clients at a remote locat ...
for the use of members of the
police The police are a Law enforcement organization, constituted body of Law enforcement officer, persons empowered by a State (polity), state, with the aim to law enforcement, enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citize ...
, or for members of the public to contact the police. It was used in the United Kingdom throughout the 20th century from the early 1920s. Unlike an ordinary callbox, its telephone was located behind a hinged door so it could be used from the outside, and the interior of the box was, in effect, a miniature
police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, a ...
for use by police officers to read and fill in reports, take meal breaks and even temporarily hold detainees until the arrival of transport. Police boxes predate the era of mobile telecommunications; nowadays members of the
British police Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Most law enforcement is carried out by police officers serving in regional po ...
carry
two-way radio A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive radio waves (a transceiver), unlike a radio broadcasting, broadcast receiver which only receives content. It is an audio (sound) transceiver, a transmitter and radio receiver, receive ...
s and
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
s rather than relying on fixed kiosks.. Most boxes are now disused or have been withdrawn from service. The typical police box contained a telephone linked directly to the local police station, allowing
patrol A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as law enforcement officers, military personnel, or security personnel, that are assigned to monitor or secure a specific geographic area. Etymology From French ''patrouiller'', from Old Fren ...
ling officers to keep in contact with the station, reporting anything unusual or requesting help if necessary. A light on top of the box would flash to alert an officer that they were requested to contact the station. Police boxes were usually blue, with the most notable exception being
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...
, where they were red until the late 1960s. In addition to a telephone, they contained equipment such as an incident book, a
fire extinguisher A fire extinguisher is a handheld active fire protection device usually filled with a dry or wet chemical used to extinguish or control small fires, often in emergencies. It is not intended for use on an out-of-control fire, such as one which ha ...
and a
first aid kit A first aid kit or medical kit is a collection of supplies and equipment used to give immediate medical treatment, primarily to treat injuries and other mild or moderate medical conditions. There is a wide variation in the contents of first aid ...
. The
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
boxes, designed by Gilbert Mackenzie Trench in 1929, became Britain's most recognisable police boxes. Between 1929 and 1938 around 1,000 examples of the Mackenzie Trench police box were installed. They measured tall, and wide. The blue police box is often associated with the science fiction television programme ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the ...
'', in which the protagonist's time machine, a
TARDIS The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a fictional hybrid of the time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. Its exterior a ...
, is disguised as a British police box.


History


United States

The first police telephone was installed in
Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Cit ...
in 1877, one year after
Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...
patented the telephone. Call boxes for use by both police and trusted members of the public were first installed in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
in 1880, initially housed in kiosks to protect the inner signal boxes from the weather and to limit access to them so as to discourage false alarms."History of the Chicago Police", John Joseph Flinn & John Elbert Wilkie (1887). In 1883, Washington, D.C. installed its own system;
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
installed police call boxes in 1884, and in 1885,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
followed suit. These were direct line telephones usually placed inside a metal box on a post which could often be accessed by a key or breaking a glass panel. In Chicago, the telephones were restricted to police use, but the boxes also contained a dial mechanism which members of the public could use to signal different types of alarms via telegraph: there were 11 signals, including " Police Wagon Required", "Thieves", "Forgers", "Murder", "Accident", "Fire" and "Drunkard".


United Kingdom

The first public police telephones in Britain appeared in Glasgow in 1891. These tall, hexagonal,
cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
boxes were painted red and had large gas lanterns fixed to the roof, as well as a mechanism which enabled the central police station to light the lanterns as signals to police officers in the vicinity to call the station for instructions. As with Chicago's boxes, the original intent was that trusted members of the public would be allowed access to the telephone in case of emergency using a special key that was registered to them, which would remain trapped in the lock until released by a master key carried by a policeman. A newer, rectangular type of cast-iron police box was introduced in Glasgow in 1912, but with the signal light now powered by electricity rather than gas, and access to the telephone now restricted solely to the police. Rectangular, wooden, garden shed style police boxes were introduced in
Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
in 1923 by Chief Constable Frederick J. Crawley, and then in Newcastle in 1925 when he took over as Chief Constable there. Crawley was arguably the first proponent (at least in Britain) of the concept of the police box as a miniature police station rather than just a communications point, including unrestricted access to the telephone by the general public for contacting police, ambulance, and fire services."Decentralization and the Police Box System", by Frederick James Crawley; Police Journal, Vol. 1 (1928). His well-publicised success with these boxes, and the revised policing methods they allowed, soon led to the adoption of similar police box systems in many of the larger cities in the north of England, including
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
and
Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...
. The
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
(Met) introduced police boxes throughout London between 1928 and 1937, and the design that later became the most well-known was created by the Met's own surveyor and architect, Gilbert Mackenzie Trench, in 1929. Initially, two competing prototype designs were installed on the newly built Becontree Estate in December 1928, with the winning builder being contracted to erect 43 boxes made of wood with concrete roofs in the final Trench pattern as part of experimental installations in the Richmond and Wood Green sub-divisions, which were completed in December 1929 and January 1930 respectively."The Rise and Fall of the Police Box", John Bunker (October 2011). Their success resulted in the widespread adoption of the system throughout Greater London over the next eight years using newer models of the Mackenzie Trench design now made completely of concrete for increased durability, save the doors, which were still made of teak. Constables complained that the concrete boxes were extremely cold and damp compared to their wooden predecessors, so provisions were made for more powerful heaters. For use by officers, the interiors of the boxes normally contained a stool, a table with drawer, a brush and duster, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, and a small electric heater. Like the 19th and early 20th century Glaswegian boxes, the London police boxes had a light at the top of each box, which would flash as a signal to police officers indicating that they should contact the station. By 1953, there were 685 police boxes on the streets of Greater London, with an additional 72 smaller police posts, also designed by Trench, used in the inner divisions where there was no space for the larger kiosks. Between 1923 and 1960 the police box and/or post system had been adopted by most of the provincial police forces throughout Great Britain. The design and construction of the police boxes used in each system were at the discretion of each individual force, and consequently varied a great deal from location to location, but the police pillars/posts were usually one of three successive models provided by the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...
(GPO). Police boxes continued to play an important role in police work until the late 1960s to early 1970s, when they were phased out following the introduction of personal radios. As the main functions of the boxes were superseded by the rise of portable telecommunications devices like the
walkie-talkie A walkie-talkie, more formally known as a handheld transceiver (HT), is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, ...
and the near universal access by the public to telephones and the 999 emergency number, very few police boxes remain in Britain today. Some have been converted into
High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...
coffee bars. These are common in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, though the city also has dozens that remain untouched — most in various states of disrepair. Edinburgh's boxes are relatively large, and are of a rectangular plan, with a design by
Ebenezer James MacRae Ebenezer James MacRae (18 January 1881 – 15 January 1951) was a Scottish architect serving as City Architect for Edinburgh for most of his active life. Life He was the son of Rev Alexander MacRae of the Free Church of Scotland. To family ...
, who was inspired by the city's abundance of
neoclassical architecture Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...
. At their peak there were 86 scattered around the city. In 2012, Lothian and Borders Police sold a further 22, leaving them owning 20. Beginning in 1933, a slightly simplified version of the Met's police box design was also used by the
City of Glasgow Police The City of Glasgow Police or Glasgow City Police was the police of the City of Glasgow, Scotland. In the 17th century, Scottish cities used to hire watchmen to guard the streets at night, augmenting a force of unpaid citizen constables. On 3 ...
when its old cast-iron police boxes were replaced by an expanded Crawley type of integrated police box system. This was done as part of the restructuring of the force brought about by
Percy Sillitoe Sir Percy Joseph Sillitoe KBE DL (22 May 1888 – 5 April 1962) was a chief constable of several police forces. He changed the role of radios, civilian staff, and women police officers within the police. He was later Director General of MI5, ...
after he was appointed Chief Constable at the end of 1931. Like the cast-iron boxes before them, the new concrete boxes continued to be painted red until the popularity of ''Doctor Who'' prompted a change to blue in the late 1960s. In 1994,
Strathclyde Police Strathclyde Police was the territorial police force responsible for the Scottish council areas of Argyll and Bute, City of Glasgow, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfre ...
decided to scrap the remaining Glasgow police boxes. However, owing to the intervention of the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust and the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, some police boxes were retained and remain today as part of Glasgow's architectural heritage. At least four remain—on Great Western Road (at the corner of Byres Road); Buchanan Street (at the corner of Royal Bank Place); Wilson Street (at the intersection of Glassford Street, completely restored); and one near the corner of Cathedral Square (at the corner of Castle Street, also restored). There was also a red police box preserved in the Glasgow Museum of Transport but this was returned to the Civil Defence Trust after Glasgow City Council decided it did not fit in with the new Transport Museum. The police boxes in Glasgow on Great Western Road, Cathedral Square, and Buchanan Street are currently under licence to a Glasgow-based coffee outlet. , only the Great Western Road and Buchanan Street boxes have been transformed to dispense beverages, and restrictions are enforced by the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust to prevent the exterior of the boxes from being modified beyond the trademarked design. The Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust now manages 11 of the UK's last Gilbert Mackenzie Trench police boxes on behalf of a private collector. Another blue police box of this style is preserved at the
National Tramway Museum The National Tramway Museum (trading as Crich Tramway Village) is a tram museum located at Crich (), Derbyshire, England. The museum contains over 60 (mainly British) trams built between 1873 and 1982 and is set within a recreated period vil ...
, Crich,
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
. One of the trust's boxes stands outside the Kent Police Museum in
Chatham, Kent Chatham ( ) is a town located within the Medway unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. The town developed around Chatham ...
, and another at Grampian Transport Museum. An original MacKenzie Trench box exists in the grounds of the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
College ( Peel Centre) at
Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Gre ...
. There is no public access, but it can easily be seen from a
Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from North London to South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. The Northern line is unique on the Underground network in having two different routes through central London, t ...
tube train travelling from
Colindale Colindale is a district in the London Borough of Barnet; its main shopping street on the A5 forming the borough boundary with neighbouring Brent. Colindale is a suburban area, and in recent years has had many new apartments built. It's also th ...
to
Hendon Central Hendon Central is a London Underground station in North West London on the A41. The station is on the Edgware branch of the Northern line, between Colindale and Brent Cross stations, and is on the boundary between Travelcard Zone 3 and Zone ...
(on the left hand side). In the
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
, there are eight non-functioning police "call posts" still in place which are Grade II
listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. The
City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples. The force responsible for law enforcement within the remainder of the London region, o ...
versions were cast iron rectangular posts, as the streets are too narrow for full sized boxes. One compartment contained the telephone and another locked compartment held a
first aid kit A first aid kit or medical kit is a collection of supplies and equipment used to give immediate medical treatment, primarily to treat injuries and other mild or moderate medical conditions. There is a wide variation in the contents of first aid ...
. Fifty posts were installed in the "Square Mile" from 1907; they were in use until 1988. On Thursday 18 April 1996, a new police box based on the Mackenzie Trench design was unveiled outside the
Earl's Court tube station Earl's Court tube station is a Grade II listed London Underground station in Earl's Court, London, on the District and Piccadilly lines. It is an important interchange for both lines and is situated in both Travelcard Zone 1 and Zone 2. The sta ...
in London, equipped with
CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly ...
cameras and a telephone to contact police. The telephone ceased to function in April 2000 when London's
telephone numbers A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...
were changed, but the box remained, despite the fact that funding for its upkeep and maintenance had long since been exhausted. In March 2005, the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
resumed funding the refurbishment and maintenance of the box. Glasgow introduced a new design of police boxes in 2005. The new boxes are not booths but rather computerized kiosks that connect the caller to a police CCTV control room operator. They stand 10 feet in height with a chrome finish and act as 24-hour information points, with three screens providing information on crime prevention, police force recruitment and tourist information.
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
also has Help Points similar to those in Glasgow, which contain a siren that is activated upon the emergency button being pressed; this also causes
CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly ...
cameras nearby to focus on the Help Point. Liverpool has structures similar to police boxes, known as police Help Points, which are essentially an intercom box with a push button mounted below a CCTV camera on a post with a direct line to the police.
Boscombe Boscombe is a suburb of Bournemouth, England. Historically in Hampshire, but today in Dorset, it is located to the east of Bournemouth town centre and west of Southbourne. Originally a sparsely inhabited area of heathland, from around 1865 B ...
in Bournemouth opened its own old-style police box in April 2014 in a bid to tackle crime in the area. The box contains a yellow phone for when it is not staffed by police, along with security cameras and a defibrillator.
City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
launched in February 2021 a competition to bring a back a new and updated police box to its streets. Whether if these new boxes will have any similarity to the old London police boxes remains to be seen.


In ''Doctor Who''

The BBC science-fiction television series ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the ...
'' features a time machine, the
TARDIS The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a fictional hybrid of the time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. Its exterior a ...
, disguised as a Mackenzie Trench-style police box. In the show, although a TARDIS is normally capable of disguising itself to blend in with its surroundings, the ship's "chameleon circuit" broke down in England in 1963, and left the TARDIS seen most often in the show stuck as a police box, except for a brief period in one adventure seen in 1985. ''Doctor Who'' was originally broadcast from 1963 to 1989; as police boxes were phased out in the 1970s, over time the image of the blue police box became associated as much with ''Doctor Who'' as with the police. In 1996, the BBC applied for a
trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from ot ...
to use the blue police box design in merchandising associated with ''Doctor Who''. In 1998, the Metropolitan Police filed an objection to the trademark claim, maintaining that they owned the
rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...
to the police box image. In 2002, the Patent Office ruled in favour of the BBC, arguing that there was no evidence that the Metropolitan Police—or any other police force—had ever registered the image as a trademark. In addition, the BBC had been selling
merchandise Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more ...
based on the image for over three decades without complaint by the police. The series was revived in 2005, and the police box continues to feature prominently in almost every episode. Although the dimensions and colour of the TARDIS used in the series have changed many times, none of the BBC props has been a faithful replica of the original MacKenzie Trench model. This has been explained within the context of the show that chameleon circuits tend to display a bit of "drift" if left in the same setting for too long, and in any case the circuit of the Doctor's TARDIS is malfunctioning. This was acknowledged in the episode " Twice Upon a Time" which had the Twelfth Doctor meet the
First Doctor The First Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was portrayed by actor William Hartnell. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time ...
, and had the original incarnation and Bill Potts point out the visible differences between the modern and original TARDISes.


Gallery

File:EdinburghCoffeeBox.jpg, This police box in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
now serves as a coffee shop. File:Old police box, Richmond Lane - geograph.org.uk - 1132688.jpg, This police box in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
now serves as an art gallery. File:Edinburgh Police Box - Cowgate, near Pleasance 001.jpg, An
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
police box with graffiti from the
2014 Scottish independence referendum A independence referendum, referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in Scotland on 18 September 2014. The referendum question was, "Should Scotland be an independent country?", which voters answered with "Yes" ...
File:Scarborough Police Box (Large).JPG, A police box on the seafront at Scarborough File:CoventGardenPoliceBox.jpg, An old police box (no telephone) in
Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
, London File:Police box, London EC3 - geograph.org.uk - 2836010.jpg, A
City of London Police The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, including the Middle and Inner Temples. The force responsible for law enforcement within the remainder of the London region, o ...
post on
Eastcheap Eastcheap is a street in central London that is a western continuation of Great Tower Street towards Monument junction. Its name derives from ''cheap'', the Old English word for market, with the prefix 'East' distinguishing it from Westcheap, ...
, 1981 File:Baltimore-police-box.jpg, A modern police box in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, Maryland, based on the British concept File:Sfpolicebox.jpg, Fire alarm and police call box in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, one of 2,040 and 460 in the city File:StMartinsLeGrand-PoliceCallBox.jpg, Police telephone post (not functional) at St. Martin's Le Grand, London — painted (incorrectly) in ' Met' dark blue. '
City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
' boxes were painted in a light blue. File:Police Box, Glasgow - DSC06282.JPG, A Mackenzie Trench design police box in
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...
File:Sheffield police Box.png, A 1929 police box that stands on Surrey Street, outside Sheffield Town Hall. It is still used as a post for city ambassadors, providing tourist information. File:Glasgow particular turned hemp dispensary 2017-05-18.jpg, A
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...
police box near the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall serving as a hemp dispensary File:Police Box, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.jpg, A rare brick-built police box in
Dewsbury Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudd ...


See also

* Kōban * Somerton TARDIS * Red telephone box * Sentry box *
Fire alarm call box A fire alarm box, fire alarm call box, or fire alarm pull box is a device used for notifying a fire department of a fire. Typically installed on street corners, they were the main means of summoning firefighters before the general availability o ...
* Royal Mile police box *


References

* * ''The Rise and Fall of the Police Box'', John Bunker (October 2011). * ''From Rattle to Radio'', John Bunker (November 1988).


External links

* . * * * — a guide to the various police box props used in ''Doctor Who'' over the years, and their relationship to real police boxes. * . * — set devoted to tracking down remaining Edinburgh police boxes. * — fine art policebox photographic typology. * * — catalogue of police box models. *
Police Public Call Box. A guide to see real life Police Boxes around the UK

The Police Box Map

Police Box locations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Police Box Public phones Police culture Box, Police Law enforcement in the United Kingdom Street furniture Doctor Who