Red telephone booth cemetery on the outskirts of London The public telephone boxes that once lined the streets of the UK, lit up the roads of Bermuda and Malta, and stood proudly on the corners of Gibraltar were designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. These streamlined, brightly colored boxes were convenient, easy to spot, and much loved by the people. By the 1980s, over 73,000 of these iconic phone booths were in use. However, like many technological innovations, what was once convenient can become clunky, expensive, and high-maintenance almost overnight. By 1985, the telephone box had been deemed obsolete, and they became more trouble than they were worth. The kiosks needed to find new homes now that they were no longer welcome on the city streets. The iconic boxes still had many admirers, leading to various repurposing ventures. Some were turned into shower stalls in homes, mini libraries, and, of course, a wide array of art projects. Those that weren't repurposed were carted out en masse to rural storage areas. One of these rural "graveyards" is located in a small village in northern England called Carlton Miniott, where hundreds of decommissioned phone boxes lie in various stages of decay.