They might look like four ordinary telephone boxes to the untrained eye – nice to have around after so many have been removed – but nothing special.

But these four boxes dotted in the villages around Swindon are a late 20th century classic – and are incredibly rare.
Designed in 1968, 11,000 of the K8 red box were made and installed around the country but very few remain – some estimates say as many as 50, others as few as 12. 
Eight of the K8 boxes are listed as protected structures in England and Wales and four of those are found here in Swindon. Another four are listed in Scotland.
Two are in Highworth – one in Grove Hill and the other in Knowlands – and have been repurposed as mini libraries. The other two are in Wroughton – one at Woodland View and the other in Langton Park south of the village.
Even to experts the reason why Swindon has half of the listed population of these boxes is a bit of a mystery.
Writing for the Twentieth Century Society, which leads the efforts to get the K8s in Swindon and other places listed, Jon Wright said the plainer design of the late 1960s boxes – it has a large pane of glass rather than the smaller panels on the classic Giles Gilbert Scott K6 boxes – did not make it a lesser version.
He wrote: “Built for a new age, but built with the same careful attention to detail, the K8 marks the end of the line for the great red boxes.”
And one is possibly even less common. Most of the K8 boxes had the illuminated top panel in a simple steel lozenge, but some have a curving line running round the roof framing the sign. Mr Wright said: “Only one of the Swindon boxes has this line and on that rationale, they must now be considered extremely rare.”
Most of the K8s seem to have been removed in the 1980s and then nearly all in the last 20 years as mobile phones made call boxes almost redundant.
Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet member for culture and heritage Robert Jandy says they are a useful reminder that Swindon has a fascinating recent history. 
He said: “We are very proud of the railway and our 19th century history but there’s a lot more going on. We are living with that heritage but there’s a bit of a gap for our more recent history – there’s car-making at Mini-BMW and Honda, there’s insurance with Hambro Life and Zurich and CD production with EMI.
 “People forget that Swindon had the first out-of-town supermarket in the UK with Carrefour where the Asda in West Swindon is now.
“We need to take care of our more recent history. When it’s close to you, you just think you can throw it away, but then 20 years later you regret it.”