Budbrooke and Hampton Magna

At the weekend, i took a train to Warwick Parkway which, as the name implies, is a railway station near to Warwick (Parkway stations are usually outside the actual town). The reason i went there though was to revisit the village of Budbrooke. 

Budbrooke is a pretty small affair, though has a nice church. It used to be the church of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who had their barracks nearby. The barracks are now long gone but have been replaced by the modern housing estate of Hampton Magna. This is by far the most populous part of Budbrooke these days. You can see my photos here.

GPO Dialphones (5) : 776

The final development of the mass market General Post Office dialphone, the 776 was first introduced in 1977. It was based on the 746, with much the same circuitry, but had a lighter smaller body and a separate bell unit. This bell unit could be installed in a wall bracket (my example is one of these).

The 776 was the first telephone developed by the GPO intended for the home market, previous models like the 746 had been designed for business users first (but of course by the late 1970s were in use in thousands of homes). Separating the handset and bell unit reduced the size of the telephone and also made it lighter to carry. It also meant that the bell could be placed in a different location in the house to the handset, such as in the hall.

The 776 came in three colours: blue, light grey (as mine is) and brown. A special dark blue (called Balmoral blue) edition was also released to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977.