Culcrow is a townland between Kilrea and Coleraine, in County Londonderry, and not far from the amazing Brown Trout Inn, where one can enjoy fantastic food. It has a lively Primary School, a handful of houses and farms, and a few old characteristics that always caused me to slow down as I travelled up the road between Kilrea and Coleraine, on route to Portstewart.  Of course I never got around to stop and take a closer look because I was in a hurry, or it was raining, or someone was with me… whatever.  But Culcrow has still got an old red phone box, and despite driving past it for years, I really wanted a closer look.

The opportunity arose one Saturday in July 2026, after I’d been doing the photography for the parkrun at Portglenone, and was driving alone up home to Portstewart.

The Culcrow Phone Box.

I love this old phone box. Boxes like this are a relic of the past, with the now dominant use of the mobile network. Most of these old relics are now gone, or being used for other purposes – for garden ornaments, or for floral arrangements, – even for a library! But this one, despite its broken widows and cobwebbed interior, is actually still in use. It has a working phone, and when I lifted the receiver and listened – it even had a dial tone, something I hadn’t heard for many years.  

I wonder how long it will be until this relic of the past is taken away for scrap?

Culcrow Post Office.

Just across the road and a couple of hundred yards down from the phone box is the old Culcrow Post Office, another piece of old society that has been long closed and left to decay. Of course it must have an owner, who no doubt has plans for it, but it is sad that a place that would have been somewhere for the local community to meet and to connect with the outside world has been replaced with emails and online group chats.

As I retuned to the car, I was intrigued by a sign buried deep in the hedge. I pulled back the nettles and thorns and discovered that it was advising walkers to use the stile. There is no stile – at least none that I could see!