“The Old Telephone Exchange” at Menstrie in Clackmannanshire, a two-bedroom detached house with an old telephone pole remaining in its original position within the grounds, will go under the hammer next month.
Auction House Scotland, which is seeking bids of £145,000-plus, described the property as “quirky”.
It added: “It could be the perfect purchase for house hunters that are looking for an eccentric home.”
Auction House Scotland said: “The current sellers purchased the plot in 2014 on which the local old telephone exchange building, traditionally built from Canadian Cedar, sat. They knocked down the structure to build the distinctive detached house that stands there now, with the original telephone pole remaining in the same position within the grounds of the old exchange.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: New bank branch closures nightmare for Scottish towns
Rehearsing the history, it added: “Exchanges were used in the early years of the telephone to connect callers within a geographic area using a switchboard. As few households had phones, people would have to use public call offices, which were set up in places like railway stations and general stores, to make a phone call.
“Inside the telephone exchange, an operator receiving a call would ask the caller what number they were trying to reach, and then manually remove and insert jack plugs on their switchboard to connect the call.”
READ MORE: Denial after denial from brass-necked Tory arch-Brexiter
Auction House Scotland noted that the UK’s first manual telephone exchange opened in London in 1879, and that the last, at Portree on the Isle of Skye, closed in 1976.
It said that “interested buyers of ‘The Old Telephone Exchange’ house in Menstrie should note that the property will not be suitable for mortgage lending due to the lack of a completion certificate”.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Rees-Mogg astounds as he tackles 'enemy of Brexit'
Auction House Scotland added: “Outstanding works still required include the installation of a central heating system and completion of a stud [partition] wall in [the] hallway."
The property is due to go under the hammer at Auction House Scotland’s next in-room auction at 2pm on September 13 at the Radisson RED hotel in Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here