Sunday, October 25, 2015

Seeking the Stroma Phone Box

A little over a year ago, I posted Musings on Small Scottish Islands, in which I discussed Stroma and Foula. The other day, I was reading the Wikipedia article about Stroma, and it settled - with reckless abandon - a question I had from last year with respect to where that photo of Stroma's telephone booth was. And I quote:

For many years, the islanders had no means of contacting the mainland in emergencies other than signalling with hand lamps and hoping that someone would see them. A radio telephone was installed in 1935, and in 1953 a telephone cable was laid. A red telephone box was installed in the centre of the island, symbolic of the 6 millionth phone box installation in the UK. It is still there today, though no longer in use.


I looked at that photo I posted and proposed that the phone box was probably located near here. Well, I was right, because if you look at this Wikipedia photo that shows both the phone box and the church, you can see from the shadow that this is the church's steeple, so based on the angle (which suggests that the satellite photo was probably taken in the middle of the afternoon), this little shadow is the phone box. Of course, the photo makes it brutally obvious, particularly when you check out that red shipping container to the north of the church.

It's yet another good lesson, though I'd have preferred a bit more of a challenge... But more on that in a future post.

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