These much ignored pieces of rural and urban furniture finally have a website of their own.
This is not the site to visit for technical information pertaining to telegraph poles. You'll find nothing about 10KVa transformers, digital telephone networking or even so much as a single volt.
This is a website celebrating the glorious everyday mundanitude of these simple silent sentinels the world over.
| from the simple... | through the interesting... | to the hieroglyphics | and the alluring |
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| click the thumbnails above to view the gallerys. | more poles... | ||
We don't care what the wires contain either. They all carry electricity in some way be it the sparky stuff which boils your kettle, or the thinner stuff with your voice in it when you're on the phone.
English vs Irish poles
We had an email from Jo from Hotmail. I can't say "recently" as it was ages ago - we move in geological timescales here at Telegraph Pole Towers. Anyway, she asks :
Hi,
Can you tell me are there any differences between Irish telegrah poles and English ones?
Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, photos also would be fab.
Many thanks
Jo
Always happy to oblige Jo, but I can't demonstrate with an English pole as I haven't been abroad for years, so I'll use a very similar Welsh pole instead.
The telegraph pole*1 on the left is from a field in Denbighshire, North Wales, near England. Whilst the one on the right is from the middle of nowhere, near Castleblayney in Eire.
As you can see, telegraph poles perform a similiar wire-levitating function in both countries so it's perhaps no surprise that they are identical in every way. With one tiny exception though. Our poles tend to reach right down to ground level whereas the Irish ones don't.
I do hope that helps.
*1 Yes, I know it's actually an electricity transmission pole - please see disclaimer
Totem Pole
T elegraph Poles have always been something of a blank canvas for missing cat posters, village hall whist-drive flyers and lonely-lady telephone calling cards. But I’m surprised it’s taken so long to turn up one of these – a proper Telegraph Totem Pole. Openreach engineer John Brunsden tells us that this is his favourite pole.
It's been like it for years, and still looking good near Stogumber Station on the lovely West Somerset Steam Railway ~ almost as good as what Banksy did with a BT Block and capping a few years back.
A splendid splinted poleWell it's allright for Andrew Rowsell (#0466H) - he works for BT so he's out there all the time and gets to see lots of telegraph pole oddities. Luckily for us though, he's now an honorary member of our most esteemed, august and elite society. So he sends them to us and for which we are extremely grateful. This amazing splinted utility pole specimen he photographed at a place called Three Waters in Cornwall. Surely it must have been easier to just put up a new pole though? All photos gratefully received - please send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thank you. Meanwhile, a request from Dan Newby from Internetshire.
Aren't we all? Anyway, do drop us a line if you can help Dan, or if you even know what he's talking about. Finally, just to let you know that Jack Nesbit's new website "British Insulators" is now up and running. In it he showcases his collection of telegraph pole insulators. I believe he intends to display them all mounted on crossarms like the example he sent me, below.
The walls at HQ TPASW ell just look what the parcel force man delivered here today... This will look splendid on the walls here at Telegraph Pole HQ. But we didn't half jangle our nerves getting it. With telephone bids coming in from around the world, and the Sotheby's auctioneer about to bang his gavel to a Oligarch collector - we thought we'd missed our chance. "Four million, three hundred thousand pounds anyone?" "Going once, to the shifty looking foreigner in the front row...", "Twice...". Now, I blame the lamb biryani we had at lunchtime, but that was a terrible moment for my dyspepsia to kick in. And to an excited auctioneer a gurgled stifled belch might conceivably sound like a bid. "Gone... Four million, three hundred thousand pounds to the startled looking gentleman over by the toilets. Congratulations, Sir." Right, I've just been on the internet and found a buyer for my right kidney. That just leaves £4,299,000 to find!
More street furniture
He says :
Well Ernie, I consider myself a bit of a dab hand at internet researching, but I'm struggling to find much about these posts. The GR in this case standing for George Rex (ages it to between 1910 and 1936) whilst Brian's being from V.R.Victoria Regina (1837 - 1901). I will continue to search, but I'm going to guess aged water mains rather than anything telegraphic. Meanwhile however, my detective brain did spot the darkening stain at lower left, and which continues on to the pavement and surrounding wall - indicative, perhaps, that a disrespectful dog may well have passed this way shortly before Ernie took his photo. Elementary! The pole is not for movingW e can almost imagine the telephone conversation that led to this...
"Er, hello, Hulton Lane builders here," "If you're calling from the number you want to talk about press 1 now" "Oh ok! But we were wondering if you could move your telegraph pole so we could finish building our house?" "Please enter the full number of the telephone you'd like to talk about." "Look, your telegraph pole is right where we want to build our house." "You've now got four choices" "And you've got to get it shifted, or these lads'll be on overtime." "If you'd like to place or check on an existing order press 1 now." "Look, is there somebody there who I can talk to about this telegraph pole?" "If your call is about billing or payments, press 2." "No I'm not calling about bloody billing!" "If you're moving home and want to stop your service, press 3." "You'll be moving home in a minute if you don't answer my question. "If you're calling to report a fault or need help with any of our services, please press 4 now." "Oh sod it!" "Right lads, it's not going anywhere so build the bloody thing around it."
Thanks to Jay Davis of Somerset for sending us the photo. |








