The eleven BT Telephone Exchanges (and nine former) in the Sudbury (01787) telephone area
The first place to get a phone service in (what became) the Sudbury group was the village of Earls Colne in 1902. Sible Hedingham and the town of Halstead followed on the same day in 1903. (The fact that these Essex exchanges ended up grouped with Sudbury – in Suffolk – was to cause controversy in later years: see Halstead.) In Sudbury itself, the council and traders feared the town was being left behind and lobbied for a telephone service which finally arrived on 26 April 1905. Portway’s ironmongers were so keen to get in on the act that they’d been advertising their phone number – Sudbury 27 – in the local papers for two months before the exchange even opened. The manual switchboard was in the post office on Market Hill, seen here on the right. It stayed there for just under seven years, connecting its last call on the morning of Sunday 10 March 1912.
Photo courtesy of Sudbury Photo Archive.
Boxford ATE
Boxford former ATE
The former Boxford telephone exchange stands in Stone Street Road, Boxford CO10 5NP. It came into service as an RAX5 on 2 August 1932 replacing a manual exchange opened on 2 February 1925. It ceased operation around 1973 when the current exchange was opened, all lines becoming Boxford 210xxx numbers. A plan in 1993 to build affordable homes on the site was scuppered when an adjoining owner refused to sell the necessary land, so it survives as the parish council office.
Its dialling code was 078 78.
ID: EABFD. Photo courtesy of Mike Stephenson.
Bures ATE
Bures former ATE
The former Bures telephone exchange is located in Colchester Road, Bures. It came into service as a UAX13 on 2 March 1939, replacing a manual switchboard in the post office in Church Square, first opened on 5 March 1923. It ceased operation on 1 February 1977 when lines were transferred to the current exchange as Bures 22xxxx numbers. It is currently used as a Royal Mail sorting office.
It’s dialling code was 078 722.
More information about the history of telephones in Bures can be found HERE
ID: EABUR. Photo courtesy of Bures-online.co.uk
Clare ATE
Clare Telephone Exchange is located in Nethergate Street, Clare, Sudbury CO10 8NP and serves Clare and the surrounding area.It came into operation around 1982 when numbers became 27xxxx. It was converted to digital operation on 20 October 1989.
Clare former ATE
The former Clare telephone exchange was situated at 13 Malting Lane, Clare CO10 8NW. The first automatic exchange here came into service as an RAX5 at 11 am on 2 March 1932, replacing a manual exchange opened around 1915.
It ceased operation around 1982. Clare Cubs and Scouts raised £7000 to buy it from BT and convert it. It opened as their headquarters on 29 June 1984.
Its dialling code was 078 727.
ID: EACLA. Photo courtesy of Oxyman.
Earls Colne ATE
Earls Colne former ATE
The former Earls Colne telephone exchange, according to the Earls Colne Heritage Museum, was in Park Lane, Earls Colne CO6 2RH. It came into service in the 1950s (replacing a manual switchboard, the first of which opened in the post office on Wednesday 24 September 1902.) It ceased operation around 1972 and is now a nursery school.
More information on the history of telephones in Earls Colne can be found HERE
Glemsford ATE
It came into service in February 1974, taking over lines from the former exchange to become Glemsford 280xxx numbers.
The telephone code for this exchange is 01787-28.
Glemsford former ATE
The former Glemsford telephone exchange was located in Egremont Street, Glemsford CO10 7SA. The first exchange here came into service as an RAX5 in about 1930 replacing a manual exchange opened in late 1907 or 1908. It ceased operation in February 1974 when lines were taken over by the current exchange. It is now privately owned.
Its dialling code was 078 728.
Great Yeldham ATE
Great Yeldham former ATE
The former Great Yeldham telephone exchange was located opposite the Waggon and Horses pub in High Street, Great Yeldham CO9 4EX. It came into service in the late 1930s, replacing a manual exchange first opened in 1909. It ceased operation around 1979, when lines were taken over by the current exchange as Great Yeldham 237xxx. It was sold in 1981 and has since been an antiques shop, an undertaker’s (for which planning permission was later refused) and is now a house.
Its dialling code was 078 777.
Awaiting photo.
Halstead ATE
It came into service in the early 1960s, the first (manual) exchange in Halstead having been opened in the old post office on the corner of the High Street and Chapel Street on 14 October 1903 with 14 subscribers. In 1965 the MP Peter Kirk protested in the Commons about Halstead, Great Yeldham and Earls Colne exchanges (which are in Essex) being in the Sudbury (Suffolk) group rather than the Braintree group. He claimed they had no connection with Suffolk and it meant calls to London were twice as expensive.The Assistant Postmaster General Joseph Slater said nothing could done. And it wasn’t.
In 1980, the four-digit Halstead numbers were prefixed with 47.
The telephone code for this exchange is 01787-47.
Hedingham ATE
Hedingham Telephone Exchange is located in Rectory Road, Sible Hedingham, Halstead CO9 3NU and serves Sible Hedingham and the surrounding area.It opened around 1971 when Hedingham numbers became 60xxx and 61xxx. (There may have been a predecessor three-digit auto exchange – code 078 76 – which came into operation around 1963, but if so the location is unknown.) It was converted to digital working in the spring of 1994.
Hedingham former Manual Exchange
The former manual Hedingham telephone exchange, seen here in 1953, was at 99 Swan Street, Sible Hedingham CO9 3HP. It was converted from a builder’s workshop in 1928 by contractor Frank Gibson to replace two exchanges – Sible Hedingham (opened Wednesday 14 October 1903) and Castle Hedingham, which opened in 1908.
The switchboard was in the ground floor room seen on the left. The day operator was a Miss Hale and the caretaker operator WT Pryke, who’d lost a leg in the Great War. After closure it became a branch of Barclays Bank and is now (2022) a fast food outlet.
Lavenham ATE
Its predecessor exchange, which replaced a manual switchboard opened on 7 December 1925, stood in Hall Road, possibly on the site of what is now number 4, permission to replace the exchange with a house having been granted in 1982.
The dialling code of the predecessor exchange was 078 724.
The telephone code for this exchange is 01787-247.
ID: EALAV. Photo courtesy of John Cranston.
Long Melford former ATE
The former Long Melford telephone exchange was situated in Woollards Gardens, Long Melford CO10 9EJ. It came in to service in the late 1930s, replacing a manual exchange first opened around 1908.
It ceased operation in about 1982 when most lines were transferred to Sudbury exchange. It is now a private house called Rontel. .
Its dialling code was 078 725.
Photo courtesy of John Cranston.
Sudbury ATE
It opened around 1941, replacing the manual exchange in the post office in Station Road. Around 1982, it took over lines from Long Melford exchange. It was converted to digital working in 1992.
Its former dialling code was 078 73.
Sudbury former manual exchange
Sudbury’s second telephone exchange was part of a purpose-built post office in Station Road, Sudbury. The switchboard opened at 8am on Monday 11 March 1912 after engineers had spent the previous day switching the lines from the old post office on Market Hill. The new post office itself didn’t open till several days later. The switchboard operated until about 1941 when it was replaced by an automatic exchange.
Photo courtesy of Sudbury Photo Archives.
Twinstead ATE
Its former dialling code was 078 729.