SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Don't know if anyone noticed or not,According to th Sunday Express - BT are putting theirphotgraph archives of the history of the public telephonesystem on line,sometime next month.Over a 1000 images including a photo diary of theconstruction of the Telephone Tower in London.

I only noticed the exchange in Upper Basinghall Street the other week. "Leeds automatic telephone exchange was opened on 18 May in Basinghall Street - a Strowger-type manufactured and installed by the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company. It was the largest of its kind in Europe, equipped for 6,800 lines with an ultimate capacity of 15,000, and the first exchange in this country capable of being extended to give service to 100,000 subscribers. It was also the first in which the caller was required to dial five figures for every local call. "

The exchange on basinghall street is still the biggest (in terms of number of active circuits) exchange in Europe.

There's also an old telegram/telephone exchange building at 5 Park Row which I think is the predecessor of Basinghall St. I'm not sure who has it now, but it's the one with the royal crest above the door.A couple of other photos that might be in the archives are some of Westgate telephone exchange taken in the 60s before Cavendish St was fenced off and with some very old cars parked outside. I work for BT so I had a good look through the internal group archives a while back. There's also some good videos including one about home working and the forerunners of broadband and fax machines that was made in the 1970s.

mhoulden wrote: There's also an old telegram/telephone exchange building at 5 Park Row which I think is the predecessor of Basinghall St. I'm not sure who has it now, but it's the one with the royal crest above the door.A couple of other photos that might be in the archives are some of Westgate telephone exchange taken in the 60s before Cavendish St was fenced off and with some very old cars parked outside. I work for BT so I had a good look through the internal group archives a while back. There's also some good videos including one about home working and the forerunners of broadband and fax machines that was made in the 1970s. Does this not have the cipher for George VI on it?