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I walk past this odd grey object twice a day and have never succeeded in determining what it is.
Grey GPO object ( with adornment )
The road on which it is located has no overhead telephone cables, so I assume that they are buried and this may be a cable marker.
But it looks like it has a lock suitable for a utility key, which would suggest that it opens or that the sleeve slides-off.
There are no other examples along the road, and this one is tucked-in under a hedge.
Yours curiously,
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I walk past this odd grey object twice a day and have never succeeded in determining what it is.
Grey GPO object ( with adornment )
The road on which it is located has no overhead telephone cables, so I assume that they are buried and this may be a cable marker.
But it looks like it has a lock suitable for a utility key, which would suggest that it opens or that the sleeve slides-off.If not a cable marker then, i don't know either
There are no other examples along the road, and this one is tucked-in under a hedge.
Yours curiously,
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If it ain't a cable marker then i dunno either, (2nd attempt)
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It's clearly very old and not necessarily anything to do with BT.
How deep is it? Could it perhaps be a snail-mail box for a property that might no longer be there? Possibly even replaced by a new housing estate?
Though it should be possible to see if it would open by looking or feeling down the sides?
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My domains,website and mail hosting - Tsohost. Internet connection - IDNet Home Starter Fibre. Live BQM.
"Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant." - Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn.
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Perhaps it's an early attempt at a master socket... Remove cover to plug in.
Tony
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It's a jointing post. Prolly full of lead ins.
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It's a jointing post. Prolly full of lead ins. Nah  .
It was for the postman to tie his horse up to in Victorian days, while he walked up house drives.
My broadband basic info/help site - www.robertos.me.uk
My domains,website and mail hosting - Tsohost. Internet connection - IDNet Home Starter Fibre. Live BQM.
"Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant." - Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn.
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A number of these dotted around Hull in certain areas too.
BT don't serve the area 
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Was doing the homework at got this. Near the bottom someone said metal with a cover that slides off. Then is what you say
Or is it for the horses.
Not sure now or is Bob pulling people legs!. Me not sure now. Did gpo service Hull once.
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-...
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joiner, marker or a horse tie from the good old days. Who knows.
on the same serch results.
http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community...
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The circular SCP's -secondary connection points[like a small grey pillar ]are redundant but you still may see some about .They are made of asbestos so are best left alone. Never seen one like the photo though ,probably a regional thing..
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think jointer but like the horse tie thing.
google bought up some choices.
Some one said on the last thing I found, Was there for shoe lace tieing.
Can see the use there!.
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safe then.
like our garage roof, what a fuss when bagging that up for the tip.
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Thanks for the replies! Sounds like "jointing box" is the best match then.
I've never actually thought to stop and measure it but it would be a couple of feet tall and a few inches thick.
I might stop by it tonight for a look... with my utility key
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That's a marker for a buried split coupling on a duct.
Hull has never been served by GPO / PO / BT
Edited by deleted (Thu 09-Feb-12 16:29:46)
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Adriandaz says there are some, a strange one then.
Was coming back on that comment, not been there,
I like the horse thing, is more funny.
In our lifetime ( I am 38), i wander if all the cable will be gone and fibre all the way.
maybe not the far away in the middle of knowhere on 10km or more line that must exist ( guessing, not a bt or phone guy). Will then some other marker arrive for burried optic fibre.
Most be some knacked old cable out there. our replaced drop wire from the grey box on the drownstairs floor level outside wall of the block of 4 was replaced, old and seen better days so changed to a 2 way white join box in the roof as upstairs flat aND we get the roof storage.
Wire must have its day even if youngens are 70 or 80 by then.
then more covers in the road where joins are wont be nneded as a piece of fibre and not joined but guess that does.
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I have no doubt there are jointing posts in Hull. They won't have BT or GPO on them though, they will have 'corporation telephones' or suchlike markings
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That's a marker for a buried split coupling on a duct.
Hull has never been served by GPO / PO / BT
For fixed line telephony services!
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M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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Hull as in Kingston Comms is the last small town teleco, most towns had their own at one time, these got absorbed, just Hull decided to stay out of it.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Hello
Doing the google thing and got some wikipedia sites and links on 1 to another
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCOM_Group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Post_Office
Interesting reads.
Not disbeliving anyone tat hull never has GPO there. Knew from this think broadband about hull being different. Was others in places but never lasted.
So cream phone boxes and a white pages. beeter for recycling I guess, all the nasty yellow dye in ours. Here they don't want it in the recycling bin. Of the point.
Hull, so never has had.
I learn't something today then.
nice one. All good stuff.
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There were certainly BT private wires in Hull when I was kicking around there but they used leased Corporation local loops.
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Any chance of a photo to look at, might be an interest on here. Does it say GPO or BT.
the joys of phone lines and things, now late for tea!.
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Its a jointing post, and it is still used by bt and will be live, if you open the cover you will probably knock a load of lines off and then get a bill from bt for putting i right if anyone has seen you in there.
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Why would I take it apart, never even seen one. If I had around here I dont go taking apart.
Not near hull and don't know where the one that started the thread off is as well.
I like doing my own internal wiring on the extensions and ok did move the master here but pulling bt stuff apart on the street, not a good idea.
Would annoy me if some prat did and my wires where in there that got broken.
I wander if a horse was tied to it then damaged would the horse owner pay, (keep going back to the horse thing that I thought was funny from robert.
Would be nice to have a good look in my FTTC u the road, many time gone past the junction at wrong angle in the car so not walking and could see when they where there. Nice to see what the £18 month goes on, big spender.
Back to watching neighbours.
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It was Northwind - the OP that suggested he might open it up!
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M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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Hull has never been served by GPO / PO / BT Errrmmm RJ?
Are you too young to know what GPO and PO mean?
Hull most certainly was served by the GPO, which became the Post Office, which now serves it.
Seeing as The Post Office was never a telco, and in the strict sense of the word, to which you like to adhere, still isn't, I beg to disagree with two of the three acronyms in the quote.
I agree that Hull has never been served by BT.
My broadband basic info/help site - www.robertos.me.uk
My domains,website and mail hosting - Tsohost. Internet connection - IDNet Home Starter Fibre. Live BQM.
"Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant." - Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn.
Edited by RobertoS (Thu 09-Feb-12 18:59:02)
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My apologies. Hull has never been served by GPO / PO / BT telegraph or telephones.
It was served by the National Telephone Company but a licence requirement required the corporation to buy out the NTC assets in the early 1900s.
Licences were issued to Hull Corporation by the GPO to operate though.
A few municipal telcos held out for a while. When I was kicking around Brighton I noted that I was unlucky enough to be banging my head in ex Brighton Corporation tramline abandoned super small size manholes for example.
The investment needed to run a telco ensured that the local municipal telcos apart from Hull sold up to NTC / GPO long ago.
For many years the Hull Corporation system with connection only, unmetered charges were envied by those outside the East Riding. Coupled with automatic Mercury opt in CPS in the 80s.
However the invention of internet dialup killed the model and LLU systems have bypassed Hull and it is now a regional competitive NotSpot reliant totally on Kingston. Hull businesses suffer for being outside the competitive Openreach network and nationwide businesses face unneeded hassle when thinking of places to locate. .
It's so small none of the serious players cares to unbundle and Hull's blight of mass unemployment and being consistently voted as ' the worst place to live in the UK' is only exasperated by being under the Kingston monopoly.
Edited by deleted (Thu 09-Feb-12 21:31:40)
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In reply to a post by Anonymous:
Interesting about the possible regional angle. This is in County Down, N Ireland. We probably did things differently in our wee corner of the nation, as usual.
I'll keep an eye out when I'm walking around for any others.
Thanks!
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I used to see posts exactly like that one in hedgerows at the side of roads when I was small in the 50's.
I can clearly remember my Dad explaining that it meant there was telephone cable underneath it at the depth indicated by the numbers.
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I took the dog for a walk in the opposite direction last night and found a clutch of these pillars about a mile away, in the streets near the exchange; again, no overhead cabling.
They are identical in design but are marked "PO" instead of "GPO" ( post-1969, then ) and have four-digit numbers painted on them, such as "1070". Some were located outside houses and others by the roadside.
I think I'll plot them on a map...
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BT did provide Telecom services to Hull through its subsidiary Cellnet - albeit mobile and not fixed line.
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M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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Just saw this while walking to the gym, here in Hull just on the edge of the town centre, and near by there were a couple of BT footpath man holes.
http://download.adriandaz.co.uk/IMG-20120210-00041.jpg
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Like you said, they got some in hull.
people argue but there then.
A long way from me and I have never even seen any where we have BT.
Funny how one simple question starts everyone going.
Maybe to do with BT cellnet lines as never did fixed lines people say.
Who knows.
I remember a mate have that network in late 90's.
This will get people arguing now!.
nice photo and can see you had snow, ours was rubbish, big fuss over nothing as usual.
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photo now on the posting, GPO ones in hull.
bet this will get people going!.
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Well there is actually a BT exchange in Hull, I say exchange, more of a switch site or something, although there aren't any BT lines providing services here, I think their connections and fibres etc.. probably pass through various places around Hull as they do serve some towns and villages around Hull.
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There you go
what everyone was right in it's own way.
Cables off out the town are there then.
funny I have never seen one here. maybe we have unsplided or magic cables here in Abingdon that dont need joining.
Nice one.
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lol well summarised.
However I have a feeling that the current rapid rollout of FTTP and FTTC across the licensed area will have a positive effect as it is competitively priced. As for the wholesale side of things, with prices been the same as BT and as KC are treated as SMP here, it's Ofcom to blame as they dictate the prices for SMPs.
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That would explain the old PCPs which are still used which are scribed GPO or PO on them, then was just engulfed by Corp Telephones etc..
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At some point there will have been interconnect cables between the GPO and Hull networks. Could be an explanation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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joiner, marker or a horse tie from the good old days. Who knows.
on the same serch results.
http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community...
We have one which looks almost identical to that about 100 Meters away from the old GPO Exchange in my Village. It is also opposite an active (I guess) duct in the pavement.
You can see the small pillar next to an ancient, thick (and very large) circa 1935 pole with Lines:
http://g.co/maps/wn5tt
The Old Exchange is literally a 20 second walk from that position:
http://g.co/maps/uq7fc
Seeming as this village is nowhere near an airfield of sorts, I would expect that it is a very old marker for cables.
I'm not sure how this compares to the OP's box. Maybe it was put in because only a small number of lines required termination, not enough to warrant a cabinet?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 13.0 db 10.0 db
Noise Margin 16.8 db 24.0 db
Max(Kbps): 11616 1056 Edited by chris6273 (Sat 11-Feb-12 14:58:47)
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Nice one.
Sure we don't any here but must be some somewhere, just not noticed.
Just found the picture to do with an airfiled I guess.
Zoomed out and now can see where you are. Did the other road lower down out of Taunton to get to butlins I guess.
Nice area for walks, loads of woods.
getting off the point now!.
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Had another look, might have done bridgewater so gone past you and as a guess not 2 .5 minutes if that from there, whats the chance.
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Hello Adrian
Cant ever think I have seen any of these.
Like we don't have here.
Off the point but do think google streetmap is a dog boll****.
has it's use.
so said had GPO or BT on and was right.
just 1 person asking a question and days later still it goes on.
Shame I cant do the photo or google thing but never seen any.
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I assume you mean a dog bollard, for use in the absence of lamp posts.
My broadband basic info/help site - www.robertos.me.uk
My domains,website and mail hosting - Tsohost. Internet connection - IDNet Home Starter Fibre. Live BQM.
"Where talent is a dwarf, self-esteem is a giant." - Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn.
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Nice one.
could be but not what I had in mind
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The GPO/PO was not a "Telco" as thought of today; but it was the the only Telephone provider for most of the UK except Hull, after the amalgamation or nationalisation of the many local 19th century companies, until the 1980s, when the Telephone functions were split of as "British Telecomms", the "BT" of today.
During my 1950s Apprenticeship in Radio and Radar, we had to attend evening classes at the Heriot-Watt College (now University) in Edinburgh.
Basically those classes were run by the H-W for the Post Office Telephone BOYS as they were generally referred to.
Thus although I have never worked in the Telephone Industry, many of my qualifications are directly and almost uniquely associated with it and the PO Boys and Engineers.
PO Telephones provided the staff for the communications links handling TV and Radio Transmissions, such as the one coming up from Sutton Coldfield via Newcastle etc to the Terminal Station at Kirk o' Shotts TV Transmitter. The video and audio signals were passed over to another building manned by BBC Engineering Staff, for amplification, modulation etc, before passing up to the Transmission Aerials at the top of the 750 foot mast.
This split responsibility was made clear when I visited the site about 1955, as also the Westerglen Radio Transmitter near Falkirk.
It was a "PO Telephones Engineer", Tommy Flowers, who was involved in the development of the early war-time computers, used to decipher the Enigma Codes.
Near my Edinburgh home was the "Post Office Telephones" Garage, with its green "glasshouse" Morris vans, own petrol pump; and several thousand Telephone Poles, impregnated with creosote at 70 PSI.
So the GPO/PO had a much wider remit than than realised today.
=============================
My present home is just 30 yards away, "across the road" from the main Distribution Cabinet for the estate - but my phone line travels east away from the cabinet, for about to a similar small junction box as has been illustrated, before somehow heading for the cabinet.
So an apparently short 30 yard run is at least 150 yards long.
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OK, not been on here for a few days......
That is a jointing post. It is a DP (distribution point) in the same way as the box on the top of a pole is, or the main box in a block of flats.
Inside there will be a main feed cable, most commonly a 20 pair one, and then the ends of the local cables that go to the individual houses nearby.
There is currently a project underway to replace the lids for these with ones made of plastic, this is stop dissuade the criminal fraternity from half-inching the lids.
It is common for them to get 're-made' back in to the adjacent footway box, as you can imagine, several decades spent at dog pee height makes them far from ideal housings for a telephone joint.
I would guess that the area where the OP was walking had houses built between 1965 and 1975.......
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Hello, thanks for the info!
I would guess that the area where the OP was walking had houses built between 1965 and 1975.......
Yes, that would be about right!
Furthermore the clutch of posts that I found in the other part of town were marked PO instead of GPO, and the houses there would be from the mid-1970s so it all correlates. They were all co-located near big square manhole covers, presumably for accessing the cable?
So my next question is, how do I decode the legend on the manhole covers?
DA W PO 73 No 4
Easier if I just show some pictures: The Story So Far
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In the second picture on your link, the four digit number is almost certainly the 'DP' number, so the number identifying which distribution point it is.
Not made of asbestos, but I still wouldn't recommend licking one.
If undone, the lid slides off and that reveals the cables inside.
DA W not a clue. Post Office, 1973, and a number 4 footway box, for the rest.
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>>DA W PO 73 No 4
DAW=Manufacturer PO=ownership No4=box type.
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Thanks again to Zarjaz & Random Jointer. It has been an education.
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