When a red phone box on Shropshire’s Brown Clee had to be taken away after being hit by a motorist, locals in a nearby hamlet refused to accept the landmark had gone forever.

After numerous appeals to BT for a replacement replica booth fell on deaf ears, residents in Abdon, near Bridgnorth, decided to put the matter right and launched a fundraising campaign to buy their own red box.

They raised almost £1,000 from two community tea parties and used the cash to spruce up a replica phone box donated by staff at The Swan in Knowle Sands.

The phone box arrives

It has since been set up next to BT’s replacement metallic box at the same site.

And even though the red box is nothing more than an empty shell with locals yet to decide what to use it for, locals are claiming victory in their fight to preserve a traditional landmark.

As well as being one of the highest in Shropshire, campaigners have also claimed the phone box is a useful landmark to help guide people around country lanes.

The residents also plan to turn a giant tree trunk into an ornamental seat with the added aim of stopping cars sliding into the phone box on the downhill approach, and are also planning a community celebration and official unveiling on April 17.

Don Brooks, one of the people involved, said: “One day the phone box was knocked over on its side, and a short while later it was taken away on health and safety grounds and replaced with a second-hand metallic box.

“We were not prepared to accept that and decided to raise money to bring it back. We were lucky we were donated an old derelict phone box by staff at the pub and have had it spruced up.

New and old together

“It’s a part of old England and the phone boxes are still shown on Ordnance Survey maps. So many people coming to holiday homes and visiting people in the area use the red phone box as a landmark for directions.

“It’s all part of the Big Society to us – we are setting up a committee to co-ordinate things like litter picks and cleaning up signs and doing little things to improve our area.”

Jill Scurfield, who raised the issue with parish councillors when the phone box was taken away, said the box was kept in their barn nearby to be painted before being towed up the road by a tractor to be put back in its rightful place.

She said: “The local community has been really keen and turned out to our events in numbers and donated generously.”

By Peter Kitchen