RESIDENTS of a Rame Peninsula village may see their phone box become a listed building - after a right royal polishing up by volunteers.

Members of Millbrook’s Village Enhancement Team (VETs) decided to renovate the village’s one remaining phone box in the Tanyard as it was in a very run-down state.

The scruffy phone box was detracting from the improved look of the Tanyard, which has been tidied up and replanted by the VETs.

So armed with wire brushes, scrapers, sugar soap and masking tape, the team set to work.

‘Little did we know when we started that it would take three or four volunteers at a time working together for over 50 hours!’ a spokesperson said.

‘We wondered if we ever reach the stage where we could paint it, but we finally painted it in the correct shade of red and picked out the crowns in gold.

‘It is now looking as good as new and we have received loads of positive feedback.’

Before starting the refurbishment job, the VETs carried out some research, and discovered that the Millbrook phone box is a K6, designed in 1935 to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

The original red phone box first appeared on the streets in 1921.

The K6 design was created by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, whose brother Adrian redesigned Mount Edgcumbe House after it was destroyed by the 1941 Blitz on Plymouth.

‘The earlier K6 telephone kiosks were embellished with the Tudor crown but those produced after 1953, the Coronation year of Queen Elizabeth II, carried the crown of St. Edward,’ said the VETs.

‘There was another small amendment to the design in 1955 when removable crowns were introduced. All this dates the Millbrook kiosk to between 1953 and 1955.

‘The kiosk is cast iron with a teak door and was manufactured in Stirlingshire by the Carron Company. It stands at 2.4 metres tall, is 92 cm wide and weighs three quarters of a ton.’

And while the Millbrook phone box still houses a working phone, callers may soon find themselves dialling from an official historic building - as the K6 kiosks are now eligible for Grade II Listing, say the village volunteers.