Weird BT Box

Well it looks weird to me as i've never seen one like this. We've just moved into the house and are currently doing it up. The BT box has seen better days, i doubt BT will change it without a charge but i just wondered what the plate with a black nipple was? It seems the cable is going into it.

Oh and should point out that it says GPO and the house was build in the 70's ish.

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Edited by nathant1985 (Fri 30-May-14 18:01:49)

It's an old version of a (pre-plug-in) faceplate that would accept one end of the cable from a dial telephone.
The centre 'nipple' is removable and allows the moulded end of an old telephone leade to be fixed in place.

Behind the plate will be a connector block (which is currently used to connect the LJ2/1A below), but would have been used to terminate the telephone lead, in a similar manner to this.

You* could remove the LJ2/1A and old face plate and replace with a flush-fitting NTE5 to make it look neater.

* Carried out by a suitable authorised/competant person.