White Phone Booths of Hull

Britain’s phone booths are famous. The country is practically synonymous with the bright red boxes that speckle its many streets. But you won’t find any of these typical phone booths within the city of Hull.

Kingston-upon-Hull’s phone booths are distinctly pale. Rather than red, they’re painted smooth shades of white or cream, thanks to different telecommunications branding.

When telecommunications started appearing within Great Britain and telephone networks started being developed, the Post Office and eventually British Telecoms monopolized the publicly available telephone booths, giving Britain one of its most characteristic traits: the red phone booth.

But this was not the case in Hull. In this town, the telephone networks were owned by the city council and to point out this difference, the phone booths were painted cream or white. This has become a part of the local heritage, and the locals are ready to defend their unique phone booths in the face of modernization.