One Caitlin Thomson has applied for planning permission to position 2 'original' Edinburgh police boxes on north-central Edinburgh pavements. Both would serve as coffee kiosks.
The first is proposed for land 18m north of No 39 North Castle Street (Ref. 13/00141/FUL). The second is intended for a spot 11m east of No 76 North Hanover Street (Ref. 13/00142/FUL).
By our estimation that would situate one of the kiosks beside Lime Blue Jewellers in the shadow of the Thomas Chalmers statue, and the other outside HSBC bank.
Some 142 cast-iron police boxes were first introduced onto Edinburgh streets during the 1930s. Their neo-classical design was by Ebenezer James MacRae (1881–1951), the City Architect also responsible for: many interwar schools ('generally arid places of symmetrical factory aspect' according to Gifford et al., 1984); rubble-faced Council housing on Barony Street; conversion of a former exhibition hall on Annandale Street into what is now our greatly beloved Lothian Buses depot.
A pioneer of architectural conservation, he also assembled The Heritage of Greater Edinburgh, a work which identified many previously unacknowledged areas and buildings worth preserving.
Unlike the original policemen who occasionally occupied MacRae's blue structures until the 1970s, tomorrow's customers will not enjoy a secure refuge from the city's hustle and bustle in which to rest weary feet, warm up, or entertain guests. They will, however, share in the time-honoured inconvenience of no lavatories.