An invitation to use the phone cabins in Westgate, North Berwick

Guidelines for local groups, artists and others wishing to use the ‘Telephone-Exchange art space’

The ‘Telephone Exchange’ is a unique micro-gallery, located in the old phone cabins by the Post Office in Westgate, North Berwick.

The ‘Telephone-Exchange art space’ grew out of the Community Council’s desire in 2017 to do something about the then eyesore of three dilapidated and unused telephone booths. Geraldine Prince established a local arts collective called pARTicipate, which developed the project by re-imagining the phone cabins as a community arts space. In 2019, pARTicipate came under the umbrella of North Berwick Environment and Heritage Trust (NBEHT – now NB Heritage). NB Heritage administers the budget for the Telephone-Exchange art space and manages the project. In early 2023, (the then) NBEHT formally leased the phone cabins and adjacent veranda from Royal Mail Group. The project has been supported by grants from North Berwick Trust and the Stella Moffat Trust, to whom we extend grateful thanks.

Over the last five years, the Telephone-Exchange art space has become a well-established feature of North Berwick’s townscape, enjoyed and appreciated by residents and visitors alike. It has attracted collaborations and engagement with a wide variety of local groups and individuals of all ages, and has a good relationship with many High Street businesses. The Telephone-Exchange art space has also spawned a range of related activities, including arts workshops, painting memorial pebbles, writing inscriptions, decorating postcards, and so on. Among thousands of instances of engagement, many have involved young people, including the children who paint pebbles for the Armistice and Remembrance Sunday display (begun in 2018). Latterly the Remembrance Sunday project has been undertaken in collaboration with the Bass Rock Group, which is typical of the collaborative partnership approach to all of our work in the Telephone-Exchange art space.

What is changing?

Hopefully, not much …! From 2018, the project has been driven forward and managed by Geraldine Prince, who has recently stepped down from both the NB Heritage Committee and the Telephone-Exchange project. We offer heartfelt thanks to Geraldine for all her hard work over more than 5 years and we salute her vision and creativity.

NB Heritage continues to hold the lease for the phone cabins and the adjacent veranda from Royal Mail Group, and remains responsible for the project overall. The baton for coordinating the project has passed to NB Heritage Trustee, Julia Zeller-Jacques, owner of the Rock & Bird art shop. This change of management gave us the opportunity to take stock and revisit the principles and guidelines for community use of this unique space.

The fundamental principles remain unchanged:

• The Telephone-Exchange art space and related activities are widely available, at no cost, to the entire North Berwick community;

• The Telephone-Exchange extends a welcoming space to the town’s visitors; and

• The art space and related activities are inclusive and cover the widest possible range of ages and abilities.

NB Heritage would like to invite other local groups and individuals to use the phone cabins in accordance with the following guidelines:

• All requests to use one or more of the cabins or adjacent space must be agreed in advance by NB Heritage;

• Local groups and individuals may apply to use one or more of the cabins at any one time and/or the veranda;

• Displays may be mounted for 3, 4 or 6 months (maximum), as agreed with NB Heritage;

• Local groups and individuals are responsible for the installation, maintenance and removal of their displays;

• Displays must be removed by the end of the agreed period of use and the phone cabins returned to their previous condition;

• Local groups and individuals are responsible for arranging any necessary insurance – no liability for any loss or damage will be accepted by NB Heritage;

• Local groups and individuals are responsible for complying with relevant public health and safety regulations – no potentially dangerous items may be installed in the cabins;

• The cabins must not be used for advertising for any commercial venture;

• The cabins may be used to raise awareness of local charities or activities;

• The cabins may be used to support fundraising for local good causes by providing a QR code, but no cash donations can be accepted on site;

• The cabins must not be used for any political or campaigning purposes.

Please do get in touch by email if you would like to discuss a possible project in the phone cabins and/or on the veranda.

Please write to Julia: jacquesluji@gmail.com, or to NB Heritage: hello@nbheritage.org.