I know them, but I have not seen one in years!!

I'm guessing it started off white - so that tells you something!

Here's the photos.

I just noticed actually, it has GPO embossed on it!

To be honest with you I'd rather it is gone as it is [censored] annoying, though others in the house don't seem to mind it!

General pic - http://i46.tinypic.com/2dvtxlu.jpg
Up close - http://i45.tinypic.com/97o31s.jpg

Hi, looks like bell-set 50e, they were cream so your house dirt was not to blame They were provided FOC for hard of hearing subs. These days a plug-in tone caller would be the more usual (read cheaper for Telecom) solution. Just call 150 and get it ceased. It may or may not show on your customer rental details. That depends on who transcribed the details from the old ARSCe computer system

I can just make out where the GPO embossing would be! It would have been cream not white ...

Have a close look at your bills - are you still paying rental for it?

Get it removed - BT should, as I suggested earlier, do it at no cost. Ask the Technician if you can keep it, then send it to me! or put it on Ebay (50% commission to me too), but the Tech may retain it for return to BT and then it might get Ebay'ed!

No we're not paying for it, would have told them to get bent if they were going to charge us for something someone in the previous house had installed! Can't believe they used to charge monthly for these things!

Seems a bit of an expensive way to hear the telephone!

Thanks for all your help guys, interesting to finally discover what it is called and never knew it was so old!

Will get a BT engineer out to remove it.

Back in the GPO days ... you would be charged line rental including the first phone and if you wanted a "non-standard", different coloured phone, or the "Trim Phone" or an extension, or external bell, or ... there would be an additional monthly charge!

What ever you do, don't let it get binned as there are collectors out there who would love to get hold of one.

Yeah, been Googling and there is a place nearby here that has lots of similar devices, will take a trip there once its down.

BT will not remove it FOC if it is not causing a problem just because you ask them to ,would you send an eng.out to do possible un-nessesary work if it was your business!...I know I am an OPenreach eng. who BT would send out and we are forced to raise charges for any work inside a property even before the nte if it is deemed to be not BT equipment at fault (check small print in your contract). If you check your bill you will not see a charge for the bell because it is not rented anymore and is deemed to be your property. My advice would be to check which type of dropwire you have coming to the house ,if it is an old grey 2 pair wire as opposed to the newer type black cable then this is probably the cause of the noise....To disconnect the bell take the cover off trace the feed cable and disconnect it from the bell the take the front off the socket and see which 2 wires are connected (from the bell) disconnect these from the bell and join to the in coming wires ,

disconnect orange wire going to position 1 and the orange wire to pos 7 and join them together...disconnect the white wire on pos 5 and the blue wire on pos4 and join these together and the bell is now bypassed,,,,simps innit. : )

Just taken a look at it is a black cable. It is dark, so most things are looking black at the moment but it is a single cable, not paired.

The reason I'm laying blame on the bell set is because it is before the master socket, and isn't filtered - so I can only assume this is what is causing the noise if it is not outside of the house, unless it is the wiring but the master faceplate looks fairly new so I'm assuming the wiring would be good.

Wiring is beyond my expertise, it is likely simple but I'd rather someone else blow the house up, so I'll ask an elder to take a look and see if they can do as you've advised before getting one of your colleagues out.

Thanks.