1 May 2026

Hiding in plain sight

posted in: Country poles, Found Poles, Vintage |

Not strictly true, but this little single-armed beauty was within 500yds of my dad’s house. We still call it dad’s house, but it isn’t really any more since he, ahem, moved upstairs –

was rather than is
and did but never does
a fully paid up member
of the past participle club

As must we all be one day. I have surely walked past this pole before as it is on a popular footpath alongside what is known locally as “The Inland Sea” which itself is accessed via an underpass from the Cob at the edge of Y Fali (Valley Village) on Ynys Môn (aka Anglesey). Until the early 2000s, Y Fali was actually called Dyffryn – which means Valley but was changed (against my will if I’m honest) to be Y Fali to sort of rhyme with what the locals and the RAF bods – who make an eternal racket all bloody day long – call the place. Clear as custard.

I was on a bird-watching loop of the area when I happened upon this. My regret is that I didn’t go back and take a photo of the dobies to see what age it was. The neurodivergent in me was also particularly attracted to the 12 neat wraps of barbed wire which could almost be an aerial winding for some giant’s crystal set which would only ever pick up Radio Athlone from 55 years ago.

A tall pole along a well walked footpath between two hedges. The pole has various telephone wires emanating from it and a single arm about four foot from the top with 4 white screw top insulators. The pole also has several winds of barbed wire at around the 8ft level.
11 Apr 2026

El Dorado

posted in: Country poles, Gorgeousness, Railway poles, Telegraph Poles |

Is in Scotland. At least as far as telegraph pole aficionado-dom goes. Keen railway traveller and line-side paraphernalia enthusiast William Brown captured this gorgeous five-armer from a moving train just north of Insch on the Inverness to Aberdeen line.

I have spent an unhealthy amount of time scrutinising google maps and street view to parachute in wherever the road crosses this line to find that it is a rich seam of such calendar-worthy poles.

I’ve already booked my holidays for this year – yes, just one per year. Mustn’t be greedy – and the concept of Aberdeenshire came a little late in the holiday bid/selection process. Now actively looking for an excuse to get up there – some 568 miles or 10 hrs 44 mins door-to-door or should I say door to pole. Thanks William, do keep ’em coming.

NOTE to pole photographers out there – actively looking for landscape mode pics of fine poles with interesting backgrounds. High resolution as possible (modern phones are ok). There’s a freebie calendar in it for you if we use your pic. It’s getting ever harder to fill a calendar – see previous post about the Fabled Lost Pole 🙁

  • A busy five armed telegraph pole pictured from a train window. Behind it is a field with houses beyond that. A blue sky day.
23 Feb 2026

Ukraine Poles

posted in: Broken Poles, Foreign ones, Found Poles, Things on poles |

Just to prove that we’re not limited to poles in the UK & Ireland. Here are three make do and mend jobs from Cherkasy in Ukraine courtesy of Bruce Burrow. Looks a bit parky for my liking. What Bruce is doing out there is anyone’s guess. Anyway, titchy pictures I know – must be to do with the cold.

  • A splinted pole in a snowy street in Cherkasy, Ukraine.
  • A splinted pole in a snowy street in Cherkasy, Ukraine.
  • A multi-purpose pole in Cherkasy, Ukraine, carrying power, telephone and also a street lamp. In a snowy suburban street.
11 Feb 2026

The Lost Pole

posted in: fabled poles, Vintage |

We are saddened to report that The Fabled lost pole of Bala Leisure Centre is no more. It is an ex pole, it has gone to meet it’s maker, bereft of life it rests in peace… (you know the rest) I was tipped off by somebody on Gweplyfr*1 that some contractors had been and removed it quite recently. Probably under cover of darkness.

I confirmed this for myself last week with a drive by. The photo below shows what you can expect to see there now. (not the blue sky obviously) If only those contractors ever read these pages they’d realise the enormity of what they were doing and might have countermanded the order from their gang-master. They should have done: “I was only following orders” is never a defence when the day of reckoning comes.

Forgive them Lord (Spoon) for they know not what they do.

Luckily those who bought our 2025 calendar still have a smashing reminder of its fabled magnificence on the July page. And for those that didn’t, we still have posters and postcards of this incredible ex-relic and, of course, it adorns the cover of our wonderful book about telegraph poles. All of which available after this hard-sell via our shop page, Where you might also notice that we’re selling some hats on behalf of our neighbours from the Welsh Space Agency who haven’t got a shop.

*1 aka facebook if you’re not in Wales.

A length of roadside hedge with a tree just visible at the left end with blue sky behind it. No telegraph pole
Art deco travel poster urging a visit to the fabled lost pole of bala leisure centre
A five armed telegraph pole with insulators and with spiky twigs of ivy and undergrowth sprouting from it along a verdant hedgeline with tree at leftmost end and blue sky behind.
27 Nov 2025

Pole Graveyard and…

posted in: Broken Poles, fabled poles, Insulators, Railway poles, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

The last of the calendars

What is it about telegraph poles and Scotland? Many of the finest extant poles can be found north of the border. And some of our most ardent telegraph pole appreciators are also from up there. Recent member William Brown sent in the photo below of a pole graveyard at Keith railway station yard. The picture, I must add, was taken by fellow new member, Mike Cooper. Official secrets and all that precludes me from telling you their membership numbers. But they are adjacent.

Apart from Keith being the name of my dad, it is a town that sounds like it should be in Aberdeenshire but is actually in Moray and is the geographical location where the A95 meets the A96. It’s also got a football team, a St. Rufus church and a Tooty’s Takeaway. And this pole graveyard of course. I’ve google street-viewed myself hoarse but haven’t been able to spot them. Seeing these expired five armers in rigor mortis I find deeply disturbing. I shouldn’t be looking at this picture so close to bedtime. And I’ve just had cheese.

Every cloud, as they say. Now that I’ve given the location away I can imagine busloads of insulator collectors turning up at some station somewhere asking to be taken to Keith and the conductor saying “He’s not working today.”

While I’m on, just 20 calendars left now. I’m supposed to be moving house so they have to go. Pic below of June by way of temptation.

A pile of dead telegraph poles. They are mostly poles with five arms and insulators.
A mockup of the June 2026 calendar page showing a pole between two mountains behind a large metal road bridge at Ballachulish.
16 Nov 2025

Still banging on about the calendar

posted in: Literature, Stuff for Sale, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

Sorry to keep doing this. It’s just that we’re down to the last half box and I am now in the process of packing up my house to have moved before Christmas. So posting stuff out after about next week is going to get tricky. Here’s what the front of it looks like. And below that are a pair of delightful photos from Minffordd cemetary alongside the Ffestiniog Railway that didn’t make it to the calendar (a bit too dark). Did I say this already? Anyway, I’d love that everyone who wants one can get one so… Roll up, get ’em while you can right <here>.

Front cover of TPAS calendar 2026 showing a 3 armed pole with different coloured insulators in front of tree foliage
  • A view from the bridge over the Ffestiniog railway of a lineside pole just below. it has 3 cross arms.
  • A lineside pole with 3 arms at Minffordd cemetary.
8 Nov 2025

Missing E

posted in: Literature, Stuff for Sale, Telegraph Poles, The Media, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

You’ve probably seen it on the news already, but a typographical error on the February page of the new Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society calendar has caused confusion and panic buying among aficionados. The error, comprising a single missing letter caused the word “there” to appear in print as “thre”. The mistake happened in the descriptive caption of a telegraph pole near Tomduen in Scotland. While the error didn’t cause any real misinterpretation of the words it did trigger collectors of misprints of official products to buy up stock and create a temporary shortage of this now collectable calendar.

TPAS spokesperson Stoddart E. Schmelmhausen told BBC News, “The letter E key on our society laptop has been giving us trouble for a while. You have to press really hard to make the key press register. And when you’ve typed more than 200 e’s in a day already, it’s no surprise when one gets missed. We promise we’re going to make it up in any reprints and in the 2027 calendar by adding extra letter e’s at no added cost. Meanwhile, we urge all telegraph pole fans to order their copies of the 2026 calendar now as stock levels are starting to show signs of distress. In the interests of fairness, we have to set a limit of 100 calendars per customer. And that’s not up for negotiation.”

A BBC newsroom photo with newsreader facing a screen carrying a picture of the february page of the TPAS Calendar. Headlines in the ticker feed below tell of the continued search for a missing letter.
2 Nov 2025

Pole of many arms

posted in: Found Poles, Gorgeousness, Railway poles, Vintage |

John Goddard wrote to ask “What is the best way to date a pole? There are no plates or etched marks on this one. It ran along side the old north midland railway station at Darfield South Yorkshire. The photo of the old now long gone station below shows two of the post, now fallen asleep per the remaining pics. The station was built in 1840 and the tunnel behind was scalped in to a cutting in 1899 so the post must date somewhere in that range but would really like to know a more exact date if its possible”.

I could have replied with 17th March 1864 and few would have been able to disprove me. Last quarter of the 19th century is about as far as I would dare hazard. Anyway, a vintage pole like this is a serious find. And I wouldn’t mind betting that with some grubbing around in that undergrowth may produce some fine vintage insulators too.

Answers on a postcard as to whether, in the second photo below, you can just see either (a) the tip of John’s finger or (b) the tip of John’s nose.

A vintage 9 armed pole at Darfield, S. Yorkshire. Tree foliage behind
  • An old black and white photo of the single storey railway station at Darfield in Yorkshire. Double tracks run into a tunnel. Two men on the platform. One in uniform.
  • An old telegraph pole has fallen over and been overtaken by undergrowth. Here the crossarms are just visible.
  • An old telegraph pole has fallen over and been overtaken by undergrowth.
28 Oct 2025

TPAS 2026 Calendar

posted in: Photos, Stuff for Sale, Telegraph Poles, The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society |

Just when the news is full of dreadful things, here’s something to spark your day/month/year – the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Calendar is now with the printers and is expected to be delivered to TPAS Towers around 5th November. And as is bloody typical, just an hour after I’d sent off the artwork I spotted something I had intended to change. I’ll have to live with it now.

Anyway, here is what the April page looks like. A whole quid cheaper than last year too. Just £9.99 + p&p. No, I don’t know how we do it either. Have a look at it on the ordering page to see what else is on the other months. So celebrate the next year with twelve glorious months of views with telegraph poles in them. Wonderful.

A mockup of April 2026 TPAS calendar showing the dates with a photo above of a 6 armed pole on the isle of Eigg with the isle of Rum in the background.
29 Aug 2025

Ships in the Knight

posted in: Appreciating, Art, Country poles |

For 25 years Gill Knight, artist, and this sage society have been searching for one another. 25 years of us looking for someone who gets poles like we do. And for Gill it was exactly the same. She’d slump into her sofa every night kicking off her shoes, defeated, another fruitless day’s searching for a society which truly reflected her love of all things “tall, wooden, sticky-uppy and with wires coming out of the top”.

We came close once or twice. There was that time when I was heading north up the M6 to a Dull Men’s Symposium in Preston, and Gill whizzed south from her home in Scotland and we passed with a combined terminal velocity of 140mph around junction 28 – the turn off for Clayton-le-Woods. Then there was that time in Venice. Our gondola had just turned into the Rio dei Tolentini canal when Gill’s gondolier steered her boat sharply into Rio del Malcanton just as we were about to come into view. Life’s like that sometimes. It was to be another 9 years of painstaking and abortive searches before Gill found us properly in an article online somewhere and when her heavily laden email clunked through my metaphorical letter box last week, I knew our search was over. Welcome to our sage and aged society Gill.

Below is a selection of some of Gill’s excellent paintings. Now you can see why we like them. And why Gill likes us. Have a look at her recent solo show on Robertson Fine Arts website. Or have a look at Gill’s website right here: https://www.gillknightart.co.uk/

1 2 3 4 … 32