POLICE BOXES
Once a conspicuous site across the UK’s metropolitan areas, only a handful of these iconic structures are still standing, with the greatest concentration in Glasgow. Despite being Immortalised for generations as Doctor Who’s time traveling ‘TARDIS’, by the early 1990s the last remaining Glasgow police boxes were threatened with destruction. Thanks to the quick thinking of Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and a collection of concerned groups and individuals, a number of these structures were saved and lovingly restored. They once again stand watchfully over Glasgow’s streets, albeit inventively transformed for a variety of 21st century uses.
History
Credited with the design of the police boxes, Gilbert Mackenzie Trench was a Scottish architect and the surveyor to the Metropolitan Police between 1920 and 1945.
Featuring an innovative cast-concrete design, the boxes made policing far more efficient, effectively creating miniature police stations in the community where bobbies could write up reports, shelter from the elements and (occasionally) temporarily detain people before they were escorted to the station. Telephones could be used by officers and members of the public to call for assistance and the distinctive light on top was designed to alert passers by for help.
After a successful roll out across London, a slightly modified version was created for Glasgow in 1933 and adopted by the City of Glasgow Police to replace their aging cast-iron boxes. Originally painted bright red in Glasgow, these were repainted blue in the late 1960s prompted by the popularity of Doctor Who.
After falling out of use from the1970s with the adoption of personal communication devices, by 1994 Strathclyde police decided to scrap the remaining ten Mackenzie Trench boxes still standing in Glasgow.
The Project
A programme of ‘stealthy’ restoration was proposed using a mixture of volunteers, donated labour and materials, and students from Glasgow College of Building and Painting. Grant funding was also acquired through the Civic Environment Trust and the Shell Britain Award.
An appeal circulated in the Doctor Who fanzine also brought in numerous donations and invaluable sponsorship in kind was received from the Bell Decorating Group in Ardire and Hunter & Clark Contractors Ltd.
In 1995, the GBPT took custody over four of the police boxes for restoration. The plight of these last boxes featured on BB2’s ‘One Foot in the Past’ programme and resulted in Historic Scotland reconsidering their decision not to list the structures. In June 1996, the first fully rehabilitated box was released onto the streets of Glasgow. having been ‘lifted’ from its original haunt in Royal Exchange Square to its new site at Buchanan Street. The Box took on a new role as the smallest ‘art gallery’ in the UK and was planned to house a revolving series of artworks for unsuspecting members of the public to enjoy. A glorified finger post to the new Gallery of Modern Art.
Three other boxes in the Trust’s care were gradually re-installed across Glasgow with the merchant city box opening in Christmas 1996 as a small replica museum of how the boxes were used in crime prevention.
Nowadays, the boxes serve a variety of functions from falafel and coffee dispensaries to a CBD product vendor. As of present, only 11 Mackenzie Trench boxes remain of the over 1000 originally constructed across the UK. Of these, more than half stand in Glasgow.
Project Team
- West End Conservation Trust
- Hunter & Clark Contractors Ltd
- Glasgow Development Agency
- RETROUVIUS
Funders
- Glasgow 1999
- Strathclyde Regional Council
- Shell Better Britain
- B.T./Civic Trust Environment Awards
- Mr. Ward Westwater the Doctor Who Society