"Mommy, what's a phone box?"

On a deserted industrial estate in the commuter town of Newark, Nottinghamshire, there is a graveyard. But this is no ordinary resting place for the dead. Few know of its existence; even fewer come to pay their respects... Welcome to the graveyard of decommissioned BT phone boxes. This warehouse, run by payphone specialist X2 Connect, is home to more than 150 of them – from a rare 85-year-old red kiosk to state-of-the-art three-cornered machines...

Since last month, when BT announced plans to sell off 60 of its classic red phone boxes, X2 Connect has been busier than ever. For the first time in 25 years, private buyers have the chance to own one of the K6 boxes, designed in 1935 for King George V’s Silver Jubilee, for a starting price of £1,950 – and demand has been huge...

Some 70,000 K6s were installed across Britain as part of the first nationwide programme of public telephone kiosks. Now, just 10,770 remain, including two in Normandy, France, that were installed for the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and a few in Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar. But as payphone use declines thanks to the spread of mobiles, 60 per cent of kiosks are losing money, with an 80 per cent drop in the number of calls made in the last five years. In 2002 there were 92,000 BT phone boxes on our streets; now there are 51,500. 

More information at The Telegraph.