The phone boxes in both Enfield Town and Winchmore Hill are listed for auction and could be converted for a variety of different uses

The four red telephone boxes in Enfield Town

Five red telephone boxes in Enfield Town and Winchmore Hill are going up for sale via auction next month.

Auction house Strettons is promoting the sale of the classic phone kiosks, which are all Grade 2-listed and date from the 1930s.

The invention of the mobile phone has made telephone boxes redundant since the turn of the century, but many of the classically designed kiosks have been saved and repurposed in recent times.

Strettons is advertising two different lots for its auction being held at 12pm on Thursday, 11th September. The first is a set of four telephone boxes in Little Park Gardens, Enfield Town, situated adjacent to the newly-opened Saddlers Square. The guide price for these is £28,000.

A second lot is for a single telephone box on The Green in Winchmore Hill, listed with a guide price of £10,000.

The owner of the phone kiosks is unknown but Strettons has confirmed they are a private organisation.

In 2022, Giving Hands Charity Trust won planning permission for one of the telephone boxes in Enfield Town to be converted into a “self-contained retail unit” that would be used – ironically – for charging mobile phones, while the other three boxes previously had permission for use as a “map vending machine, sim card dispenser and stationary dispenser”.

Similarly, Giving Hands also won permission for the Winchmore Hill telephone box to be converted into a retail unit in 2021.

However, these uses were apparently never fulfilled.

It is not clear if Giving Hands still owns the boxes, as the charity could not be reached for comment.

Robert Woolfe, an auctioneer from Strettons handling the telephone box sales, told the Dispatch: “There has been quite a healthy response to them so far, I have had enquiries from people about the different uses for them, which has been interesting.

“Someone suggested putting a defibrillator in there, someone else said they had seen them used as a florist. There is a lot of potential different uses and they are all well located.”

To find out more about the auction of the Enfield Town telephone boxes:
Visit strettons.co.uk/auction-property-for-sale/studio-property-for-sale-in-four-former-public-telephone-kiosks-little-park-gardens-enfield

To find out more about the auction of the Winchmore Hill telephone box:
Visit strettons.co.uk/auction-residential-property-for-sale/studio-property-for-sale-in-former-public-telephone-kiosk-the-green-winchmore-hill

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