Cultural heritage
We protect and maintain Britain's grade II listed phone boxes, preserving our architectural and cultural heritage, while ensuring future generations can enjoy them.
Our story
About the charity
Box Walks is a registered charity which develops nature-based, adventure walks using Britain's grade II listed phone boxes as destination points on the walks, which unlock interactive content and activities.
Our vision is to bring our urban grade II listed phone boxes out of retirement, and once again use them to create connection and community. Only this time, amplifying their reach to reflect our modern world.
What we do
Our mission
Walking & making new friends
We enable communities to come together — walk, get fit and make new friends — while enjoying and interacting with what the borough has to offer.
Environmental action
We accelerate environmental action by providing communities with activities they can complete to reduce their environmental footprint, while collecting points and competing with others.
How we do it
Phone boxes plus an app
We buy and lease the phone boxes, and make sure these are maintained and kept in good condition. We preserve the integrity of all our phone boxes by holding the content relating to our walks and activities on our Box Walks app.
Everyone can download the Box Walks app for free, set up an account, take part in walks and activities, earn points and compete with others on the app. They will, however, need to visit each physical phone box to be able to unlock different walks and activities held on the app. Meet the boxes, browse the walks, or get in touch.
The team
Our trustees
Emma Howcroft
Emma Howcroft is the chair and co-founder of Box Walks. She is a transformational sustainability and procurement leader and comes with 22 years' experience working in multinational companies. Her recent projects include the design and implementation of a sustainable sourcing programme for a life sciences company and a sustainable plastics programme for a FTSE 100 pharma company. Emma has a Master's in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge and sits on various nature-related advocacy groups which help organisations embed natural capital consideration into their business processes.
At Box Walks, Emma is leading the effort to transition the charity from proof of concept to operational launch, establishing the governance, funding, and compliance structures needed to scale up its impact. She also works with the other trustees to create the content for the walks and activities.
Harry Guest
Harry Guest is the digital brains behind Box Walks and is the other co-founder. A software engineer based in the UK, Harry enjoys solving problems and creating user-friendly tools that make life easier, with a knack for exploring how technology can improve the way we live and work.
He has worked in the creative industry for several years and has led various design and digital projects, spanning brand guideline development, e-commerce implementation, mobile infrastructure, achievement systems and security implementation, end-to-end application development and third-party system integrations, including centralised API development. At Box Walks, Harry leads branding and all digital elements associated with the charity.
Outside of his work and advocacy, Harry is a creative at heart. He is an aspiring writer who loves crafting engaging stories, exploring new worlds through books, and brainstorming fresh ideas with his book club. When not writing, Harry can often be found behind a camera, capturing the beauty of the world around him, or in the kitchen experimenting with recipes that reflect his love of food and culture.
Gosia Henderson
Gosia Henderson is a coach, consultant and entrepreneur. She has a corporate background covering operational excellence, capability building, engagement and organisational change. She completed the Sustainability Leadership programme at the University of Cambridge, and applies this experience to support sustainable and regenerative transformation.
At Box Walks, Gosia focuses on creating nature-centred content along with experiences that spark curiosity, deepen connection with nature and gently nudge more conscious choices, bringing joy and a sense of play into the sustainability movement. She is particularly interested in biomimicry, drawing on nature's strategies and processes to help bring nature's presence and voice more clearly into the human world.