I thought I would contribute this anecdote of the bell switch on my parents bedroom extension in my childhood home, and ask if it was a common scenario.
The phones were GPO 332, and had a single button for earth-leg recall.
The bell switch was a porcelain & bakelite tumbler switch mounted in the skirting board and wired into the bakelite junction-box so as to short the local bell when the switch was closed. It was a normal one way mains light switch with ON OFF marked on the bakelite cover, but as the body of the switch was mounted upside-down on the wall, the switch was closed when it was in the OFF position.
Eventually a engineer called to replace the 332s with 706s, we still had the party-line but I can't remember if the skirting board switch was still connected or just abandoned, as I suppose its purpose was to stop me and my sister from being woken up as babies
I was hoping the engineer would forget to take the old pones with him, but I was out of luck.