book exchange

You can donate or help yourself to books for free in our book exchange, which is intended to encourage literacy and sustainable recycling of books.

Here is our guide to using the book exchange:

donate books only e.g. no magazines, leaflets, etc
non-fiction books are welcome, but no reference books or textbooks
put books on the shelves - children's and big books go on the lower shelves
close the door afterwards to keep the books safe from weather and animals.

Thank you, and happy reading!

The UP Garden

creation

Late Spring 2022

Local restoration company, Connole Bros, had owned the K6 telephone box for some time, intending to renovate it and replace the wooden version they had built and installed on the corner of Talbot and Winchelsea Roads. They moved premises before they could finish their plan, and kindly donated the telephone box to The UP Garden instead.

Lowden Roofing loaned their grab lorry and staff to transport the telephone box down the road to The UP Garden, where it lay on its side for a month tucked away from public view.

Maqs, owner of Seafood Supermarket, brought his pallet trolley and with help from staff from ELC and a local volunteer, carried all 750kg of it to its final location and got it upright.

When we received it, the door was already broken off, warped, and had lost its bottom section so was unsalvageable and went for scrap metal recycling. The remainder of the telephone box was in a sorry state - partially-sandblasted exterior, and missing some framework, part of the base, and the whole internal floor - so it sat in the corner until we could raise funds to renovate it. The Lanes Jumble Trail kindly donated their 2022 profits towards the project to kick us off.

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Autumn 2023

In Autumn 2023, we applied to People Powered Places, a fund created by the London Borough of Newham. After being shortlisted, we were required to campaign for votes in person and online.

December 2023

Thanks to public support, we won funding at the end of 2023! We were the highest placed non-profit community group that was not a registered charity, church or school.

January 2024

We spent the early part of 2024 planning the timeline, strategy and budget of our book exchange project.

April-July 2024

The first task was to remove the internal shelf, wiring and backboard. So far, so good. However, removing multiple layers of old patchy paintwork took longer than anticipated as the electric sander could only do so much: various parts of the telephone box could only be sanded by hand. In addition, it was much more fiddly than expected to remove all of the broken glass and the rock-hard putty wedged into the framework, which could only be done by hammer and chisel. Both of these tasks were hard-going and noisy so could only be done for short periods of time, and we could only have 2 to 3 people working on the telephone box at a time due to its dimensions. We also carefully swept up the tiny bits of glass and other debris after each session, to keep The UP Garden safe for visitors. More than 100 hours were donated by volunteers over a 4-month period to strip and sand the telephone box.

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August 2024

We sourced specialist materials from a certified supplier of K6 telephone box spares. We primed and painted the telephone box. This simple step was a huge leap in its visual transformation, and gave us much needed motivation after all of the painstaking (and painful!) work over the previous months. We delayed the unveiling from our Summertide event to our Autumntide one instead.

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September-October 2024

One of the cross bars needed replacing, which we constructed in wood, which allowed us to fit the new glazing. The broken base was repaired with car filler, sanded, and painted to match. We could then install a replacement floor, and fix battens to the back wall ready for the new backboard. Local timber merchants, Chambers Timber, discounted materials to help our budget. It was looking unlikely that we would be ready to unveil at Autumntide, so we delayed to Wintertide... but that would be our last chance before the funding deadline expired!

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November 2024

Install Archive helped us to design the vinyl decal signage to go on the top of the telephone box, and kindly donated it! One Six One Furniture made and installed a bespoke door to replace the original metal one (which would have been too heavy for our intended users anyway) and discounted their services. OK TO Colour discounted the aluminium dibond signage which goes either side of the telephone box to explain how the book exchange was created and how it works. Our final tasks were to paint the floor, and fit the backboard, shelves and hardware.

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December 2024

We unveiled our book exchange at our Wintertide event! It has been added to a map of K6 telephone box locations maintained by the supplier of our spares materials.

We are hugely thankful to the volunteers who between them donated more than 200 hours to the book exchange project (around 85% by Catherine, Vikram and Roy), all the businesses who discounted or donated services, the London Borough of Newham and The Lanes Jumble Trail for funding the transformation, and everyone else who supported this project. We hope our community enjoys the book exchange for a long time to come!

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