Duke of Westminster's Sutherland phone box undergoes life-saver refurbishment
SCOTLAND’S only black and white phone kiosk has been reinstalled following a careful restoration.
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The landmark telephone box, whose aristocratic owner is worth an estimated £9billion, has now been turned into a lifesaver.
It will also be a poignant reminder for the country’s most eligible bachelor, the 7th Duke of Westminster, whose father fought to save it from demolition.
However, the box at Achfary on the Duke’s 96,000 acre Reay Forest Estate in Sutherland has one important new addition.
It no longer has an operational telephone but instead houses a life-saving defibrillator.
The late sixth Duke, the billionaire landowner Gerald Grosvenor – godfather to Prince William – battled to save the kiosk, even though it was only used a few times each year.
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It is a landmark and there was a lot of feeling on the estate that it should be restored
Its admirers over the years have included guests Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. It is also one of the most photographed phone boxes in the North, with tourists making long detours just to see it.
The box was erected in the 1960s and permission was given by the GPO for it to be painted black and white to blend in with the surrounding buildings.
But when BT finally decided to axe the call box, the estate stepped in.
The current Duke, 27-year-old Hugh Grosvenor, was kept updated on the unusual restoration, carried out meticulously by estate joiner George Leligdowicz.
Mr Leligdowicz said the old duke, who died of a heart attack aged 64 in 2016, was very keen to save the striking kiosk, which is a few miles off the booming North Coast 500 motor touring route.
He spent hundreds of hours on the restoration, which began in April last year.
The phone box is now about 30 yards from where it previously stood.
“I have really enjoyed it – it was not a run of the mill job,” said Mr Leligdowicz.
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“It is a landmark and there was a lot of feeling on the estate that it should be restored. It was in a pretty poor state, parts had rusted through.
“The phone was still attached but BT had disconnected it a couple of years ago.”
The K6 kiosk was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott for the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V in 1935.
BT announced over 18 months ago plans to shut one-third of all the 479 public phone boxes in the Highlands. But more than 150 payphones in Scotland had been adopted by local communities for such uses as housing defibrillators.