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Old 21st Jul 2017, 10:15 am   #1
Dave Moll
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Default Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

I thought the images below might be of some interest to telephony afficionados here. They show a small telephone exchange (as far as I know, still in use) in the village of Braithwaite on the outskirts of Keswick, Cumbria.

Obviously, it no longer contains the original Strowger equipment for which it was built, so the rear building (which appears to be the actual exchange building) probably just has a small piece of modern electronics connecting the village's telephones to the "main" exchange in Keswick. The front building appears to contain some sort of generator, judging by the exhaust pipe sticking out of the window.

I wonder how many similar untis there are dotted around the country.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 10:41 am   #2
Peter.N.
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Ther used to be a number in the far north of Scotland but I can't say I have noticed them lately.

When we first started going up there in the '70's their telephone system was very basic to say the least except for the mix of old and modern technology along the north coast. The main cable run in a ditch along the side of the road on the Wick - John O Groats road an periodically the cable run up a post to a junction, as you head west the cable ran across open fields and through culverts until it reached somewhere around Durness when there was a big loch where it entered a box with a microwave dish on top pointing to another one on the other side.

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Old 21st Jul 2017, 11:09 am   #3
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter.N. View Post
There used to be a number in the far north of Scotland but I can't say I have noticed them lately...
Lots of these buildings are still there. My wife and I have just returned from a three week tour of the far north-west including Tongue, Durness, Ullapool and Applecross, and I spotted several of them. Many are probably not in use but it would cost BT money to demolish them.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 2:29 pm   #4
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

The smaller of the two buildings was probably to house the first automatic exchange- usually an UAX12. The second building looks as if it housed a SAX, but perhaps an UAX13.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 2:46 pm   #5
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

There's a similar-looking one on the A4 just East of Hungerford, though it's in a bit of a state of disrepair.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 3:05 pm   #6
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

I actually had a friend who managed to purchase a defunct telephone exchange up in Scotland a few years ago.
He wanted to convert it into a holiday home but couldn't get planning permission for some reason.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 5:12 pm   #7
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

The telephone exchange equipment we use at work now doesn't need much accommodation. Just two shelves about three U high in a little 19" rack. Granted they are "small" ones but they certainly don't need the large buildings of old. Standby gennies etc probably take up most space, although we tend to use a bank of batteries instead.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 6:58 pm   #8
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
I thought the images below might be of some interest to telephony afficionados here. They show a small telephone exchange (as far as I know, still in use) in the village of Braithwaite on the outskirts of Keswick, Cumbria.

Obviously, it no longer contains the original Strowger equipment for which it was built, so the rear building (which appears to be the actual exchange building) probably just has a small piece of modern electronics connecting the village's telephones to the "main" exchange in Keswick. The front building appears to contain some sort of generator, judging by the exhaust pipe sticking out of the window.

I wonder how many similar units there are dotted around the country.
The first 'Braithwaite' number was 'Braithwaite 1' but there was no exchange! In 1923 we find a 'Call Office' with the number 'Braithwaite 1' in the village Post Office - it was the practice where was no exchange to have a line off the nearest 'main' exchange (Keswick' in this case) but give t the name of the village it was in.

Braithwaite exchange opened on 8th April 1925 as a small manual exchange (Central Battery Signalling No 2 system) with about 15 lines on it, located in the Braithwaite village post office. In 1937 it went automatic with 45 lines on a UAX12 located in the smaller 'A' type building that now houses the generator. By 1955 the number lines was into the eighties and the UAX12 could only serve 90 lines (unless it was extended to a UAX12X (essentially two UAX12's in a Linked Numbering Scheme which could handle 165 lines). Thus by early 1956, it had been replaced by a UAX13 which in its initial form could handle 200 lines. As a UAX13, those who had been on the waiting list could be connected and we find 96 lines at the end of March1956. STD arrived in 1969 together with the 999 service! then sometime after 1985, it went digital with System Y concentrator.

It is a typical story for many rural exchanges, particularly the smaller ones. The small rural buildings for automatic exchanges started in 1929 with the small flat topped 'A' type buildings which were later replaced with the pitched roof 'A' type as at Braithwaite.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 7:12 pm   #9
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Fascinating. I have been through Braithwaite many a time but failed to notice this building. I will have to look harder next time. In our local area we have a few of the old repeater stations alongside the main roads and one has recently been converted to camping barn style accommodation alongside the "Military Road" (B6318) and Hadrian's Wall.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 7:37 pm   #10
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Look out for the public toilets (though these are currently under threat of closure) near the main bus stop. As you face the toilet block, the exchange is on its right, set back from the road.

Thank you to Pellseinydd for the history of the exchange. I rather suspected you would know if anyone did!
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 7:50 pm   #11
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Quote:
Originally Posted by Biggles View Post
Fascinating. I have been through Braithwaite many a time but failed to notice this building. I will have to look harder next time. In our local area we have a few of the old repeater stations alongside the main roads and one has recently been converted to camping barn style accommodation alongside the "Military Road" (B6318) and Hadrian's Wall.
Alan.
See this for Braithwaite https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.60...7i13312!8i6656

I assume that this is 'The Old Repeater Station' ? https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.02...7i13312!8i6656 It's on the 1957 OS map but not the 1952 one.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 8:37 pm   #12
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

I understand the former BT repeater station on the A6 at the top of Shap has been converted to a small music venue.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 11:44 pm   #13
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Yes, that's "The Old Repeater Station". It's just up the road from me. I drive past it regularly on my way to jobs in Cumbria.
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Old 21st Jul 2017, 11:55 pm   #14
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

This is SPOFFORTH EXCHANGE, I do have an older picture of it, but cannot remember where it is at the mo.

SPOFFORTH, between Wetherby & Harrogate.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95...-GB&authuser=0
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Old 22nd Jul 2017, 8:22 am   #15
Pellseinydd
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

A typical setup ! See http://www.geograph.org.uk/of/telephone+exchange
for more.

But there are some you're very unlikely to drive by ! See attached ones! To get back on subject - see the vintage equipment recovered.

Old Canna exchange (a 10ft by 8ft garden shed) is in the Inner Hebrides and you can't get anymore remote than the exchange on Foula - BT's most remote exchange way out in the Atlantic to the west of the Shetland Islands. That took some bringing back - an eight day round trip!
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Last edited by Pellseinydd; 22nd Jul 2017 at 8:43 am.
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Old 13th Aug 2017, 10:27 pm   #16
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Default Re: Rural telephone exchange - Braithwaite, Keswick

Few others you'd be hard pushed to walk to ( Soay springs to mind - something like a 6'x4 garden hut perched on a hillside ). But both UAX (5/12/13, 5 from memory had no dial tone ) and repeater buildings for CEL 6/6A were almost identical, although most repeaters had no need for generators as power for the equipment was fed over the coax.
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