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[Ezzer]

Had a look at the link, whats was interesting was the take over from National Telephones in 1913
I remember a pole marked NT instead of GPO, but it was dated 28 ? Thats 1928 not 28ft, cant remember the height but it was replaced with an 8m pole.

Old copper in the network is fair enough, but aluminium ?

[owenojo]

Love all this historical stuff! There is a pole down the other end of my street that still does its job that's certainly from the 30's, I think it says GPO 32 on it. Looks like it originally had wooden arms attached to it, not sure of the actual term. Does anyone know the age of the pavement covers that says post office telegraphs, as supposed to telephones? Theres a lot round these parts.

[Tim69]

Love all this historical stuff! There is a pole down the other end of my street that still does its job that's certainly from the 30's, I think it says GPO 32 on it. Looks like it originally had wooden arms attached to it, not sure of the actual term. Does anyone know the age of the pavement covers that says post office telegraphs, as supposed to telephones? Theres a lot round these parts.

 
 Are you around Muswell Hill/Crouch End perhaps?

[owenojo]

A surprisingly close guess - Dartmouth Park/Archway

[Tim69]

A surprisingly close guess - Dartmouth Park/Archway

 
 It was the large number of cast iron covers that rang a bell. 
 
 My life in the telephone world started at the old Flaxman exchange, where the chief engineer (this was 50+ years ago and he was on the verge of retirement then) had been involved in laying cable between Alexandra Palace and the west end (I suspect that this was the cable used for television before the war, notably for televising the coronation precession of George VI in 1937) He said it was about 2 inches across, very inflexible and required more manholes and cable chambers to be installed on the route. Testing consisted of laying out 500 ft lengths at Alexandra Park, connecting them together and putting a signal in at one end and see what emerged at the other (cutting edge stuff in the time no doubt).
 
 I have no idea of the route followed, but I would think there is a good chance you are on it.   
 
  Link to pre-war Radio Times television supplements  if anyone is interested 
 
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/resources/radio_times/index.shtml# 

[Black Sheep]

Oh there's plenty of this stuff still around. The brown stuff like grease proof paper is wrapped around the conducting pairs under the outer most insualtion. Also as Burakkuat mentioned, there is paper insulated stuff out there, along with lead joints. Joint casings made from lead and melted and formed by the jointer. Never had to open one but have come across paper a few times.

As Ezz has pointed out, there's still lots of this stuff around. Regarding paper-insulated cable, we had our last one replaced approx 10yrs ago, on our patch. Horrible, horrible stuff to work on …. the paper would unwrap itself down the length of the exposed wires once cut, but at the speed of light.