Hoe Street Telephone Exchange

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I’ve fallen under the spell of the old Telephone Exchange on Hoe Street, Walthamstow. Out for a wander the other day it drew me across the road, compelling me to sit on the front step for a while, momentarily slipping outside of the ‘other’ world into its strange orbit.

Built in 1956 it belongs to the world of The Quatermass Experiment and The Goon Show. A post-war world of technological progress, decaying Empires, buzz cuts. It would make the perfect Headquarters for the National Institute of Applied Psychogeography.

For now though it appears to still function as telephone exchange pushing high-speed broadband into Walthamstow homes delivering online multi-player games and on-demand TV.

3 Comments

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  2. Pingback: Walthamstow's Sinking Cemetery and the Cinema Pioneer - the lost byway

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