K6 Telephone Kiosk at Lippitts Hill Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Site, Waltham Abbey, Essex

Summary

K6 Telephone Kiosk, erected 1940s for the War Office.

Description

The K6 is a standardised design made of cast-iron, generally painted red overall (although this example is grey/green) with long horizontal glazing in the door and sides and with the crowns situated on the top panels being applied not perforated. There are rectangular white display signs, reading TELEPHONE beneath the shallow-curved roof. It has modern internal telephony equipment* which is not of special interest and is therefore excluded from the listing.

This telephone kiosk's display signs above the doors are clearly visible but the green paint is peeling in places revealing red beneath. It mainly retains the glass window panels although some to the sides have been replaced in Perspex. It is located adjacent to the south corner of the Spider Block (NHLE1390667), 27m south-west of the Mess Block (NHLE1390664) and 40m from the Commander's Office (NHLE 1390665), all listed at Grade II. The kiosk has a strong visual relationship with all three of these listed buildings.

* Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest.

History

Until just before the Second World War the site of Lippitts Hill, currently a Police Training Camp, was a rural setting of open fields bordered by the Owl public house and Pipers Farm on the east side. The 1882 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map shows a series of enclosed medieval fields on the site. By January 1940 a Heavy Anti-Aircraft battery known as ZE7 Lippitts Hill had been constructed to guard the eastern approaches of London. War Office documents record that the battery was operational in January 1940, and by January 1943 the battery was manned by American troops under the command of Major M F J Emanuel. In March 1944 Battery B, 184th Anti-Aircraft Artillery, equipped with Mark 1, 90mm guns, became the first American crew to fire in the defence of London.

In late 1944, the Americans moved to France and the site was converted by the British into a Prisoner of War camp. A reminder of this phase of use still exists on site today in the form of a concrete sculpture of a man carved by prisoner Rudi Weber in 1946 (NHLE 1390665). The Prisoner of War camp was closed in 1948. Sometime in 1951, or shortly afterwards, a Cold War Anti-Aircraft Operation Room (AAOR) was built on the site. It acted as a control centre for a number of anti-aircraft guns protecting the north of London. By 1956, with the advent of high flying jet bombers and evolving missile technology this role was obsolete and the system was abandoned.

In 1960, the site became a Metropolitan Police Training Area, a function retained until 2003. Following the murder of three police officers in West London in 1966, it was used as a centre for training police officers in the use of guns, although the construction of a new pistol firing range was not approved until 1973. From 1976 Lippitts Hill became a base for police helicopters, which were loaned from the Army and operated over London. However, in 1980, faced by a change in flight requirements, the Metropolitan Police purchased their own aircraft, and in November that year the Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit was officially launched and based at Lippitts Hill. Changes to the Metropolitan Police area in 2000 placed Lippitts Hill, and the surrounding area under Essex Police. The helicopter unit joined the National Police Air Service (NPAS) in 2014.

The K6 telephone kiosk is believed to relate to the earliest phase of the site, although it has modern internal equipment and some Perspex panels where glass has been replaced.

The K6 telephone kiosk is a milestone of C20 industrial design. The K6 was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935 for the General Post Office, on the occasion of King George V's Silver Jubilee. It was a development from his earlier highly successful K2 telephone kiosk design of 1924, of Neo-classical inspiration. The K6 was more streamlined aesthetically, more compact and more cost-effective to mass produce. Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960) was one of the most important of modern British architects; his many celebrated commissions include the Anglican cathedral of Liverpool and Battersea power station. The K2 and K6 telephone kiosks represent a very thoughtful adaptation of architectural tradition to contemporary technological requirements. Well over 10,000 K6s were eventually produced. In the 1960s many were replaced with a new kiosk type, but many still remain, and continue to be an iconic feature on Britain's streetscapes.

Reasons for Listing

The K6 telephone kiosk, Lippitts Hill is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* As an iconic example of industrial design, showing Giles Gilbert Scott’s adaptation of Neoclassical forms for a modern technological function;

Historic interest:

* As part of a group of buildings built by the War Office as part of the supporting infrastructure for military personnel serving the ZE7 Lippitts Hill HAA gun emplacement, a rare and well-preserved anti-aircraft gun site;

Group value:

* It has a strong visual relationship with the Spider Block, the Mess Block and the Commander's Office, all listed at Grade II.

External Links

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