concrete lamposts!

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Worcestershire Wolf
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Worcestershire Wolf »

Thought I would bump this forum after seeing some interesting ones on a walk today.

Firstly these long row of very well preserved specimens on private land in Kidderminster. The columns seem in perfect condition and have all been left in situ despite the lamps themselves being in various stages of disrepair and not being used:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.36003 ... 312!8i6656

And nearby a couple of very old Worcestershire examples in Wilden Top. I have seen this type of column in old photos of Worcestershire, but so far these are the only ones I have seen still in situ and in use. Also these have retained the Sodium lamps as all the others in the are have now been replaced by LED (since the Streetview car came along). Presumably an fitting LED couldn't be fitted to these and the contract only specified lamp replacement and not column replacement too:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.35050 ... 312!8i6656
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Truvelo
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Truvelo »

Also in Worcestershire is this concrete swan neck in Pershore which was still there with its mercury lantern when I drove past it earlier in the year.

https://goo.gl/maps/3ZhRtR8UJ9q1wacV9
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skiddaw05
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by skiddaw05 »

A lovely isolated specimen in Wells Next The Sea here
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c2R
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by c2R »

Worcestershire Wolf wrote: Sat Dec 12, 2020 20:32 And nearby a couple of very old Worcestershire examples in Wilden Top. I have seen this type of column in old photos of Worcestershire, but so far these are the only ones I have seen still in situ and in use. Also these have retained the Sodium lamps as all the others in the are have now been replaced by LED (since the Streetview car came along). Presumably an fitting LED couldn't be fitted to these and the contract only specified lamp replacement and not column replacement too:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.35050 ... 312!8i6656
It can be done, but it is a more complicated job requiring sleeving of the column: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.91379 ... 312!8i6656
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by RichardA626 »

skiddaw05 wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 00:22 A lovely isolated specimen in Wells Next The Sea here
I've walked past it a few times when I've been on holiday there.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Truvelo »

c2R wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 07:53 It can be done, but it is a more complicated job requiring sleeving of the column: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.91379 ... 312!8i6656
I have to say it looked far better with the original bracket and lantern.
RichardA626 wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 11:02
skiddaw05 wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 00:22 A lovely isolated specimen in Wells Next The Sea here
I've walked past it a few times when I've been on holiday there.
It's mounted on a rather tall column for a 35w SOX. It's either a Beta 5 or something very similar.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Jonathan24 »

Came across this concrete lamppost today - it seems to be on private land though and suspect it no longer works.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.81466 ... 384!8i8192
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Truvelo »

Jonathan24 wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 18:05 Came across this concrete lamppost today - it seems to be on private land though and suspect it no longer works.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.81466 ... 384!8i8192
That lantern contains a very rare "acorn" shaped bowl.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Kevin Roads »

I think this is another acorn-shaped bowl:

I was cutting through one of the streets at the top of Llandudno today to watch the riders in the Tour of Britain ascend the Great Orme when I spotted this old lampost lower down from me. From above, it looked as if it was on some private land or similar but it turned out to be on a very minor back street.

It's a GEC column (or, at least, has GEC on the access cover). Is it a mercury lamp? I wonder if it still works?
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Truvelo
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Truvelo »

The canopy looks like a GEC Z5560 which is odd because the acorn shape bowls are too small a diameter to fit the Z5560 to Z5590 series lanterns. A Z5530 does fit these bowls as the metal plate holding the bowl is smaller but the neck in your photos is too wide to be a Z5530.

Saying that, you mentioned the column is GEC not the lantern. The lantern may be a Beta 4 but the angle of the photo makes it hard to tell if the top of the lantern is tapered.

As for the lamp type it is definitely a mercury type lantern although you need to be there at night to see what colour the light is.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by L.J.D »

Barnsley still has lots of these beauties all over their main roads. I'd say the sleeves date back from the late 90s and I always thought they did a good job blending the sleeve in with the concrete because they painted them. I bet the columns date back to 70s or 80s. Id be interested to see what brackets they originally had. It's just a shame they are now replacing the SOX with LED when they fail. I always thought that SOX lantern really suited the sleeve and columns. There's tons of concrete columns left in Barnsley. I imagine sleeving them all in the 90s saved alot of them.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Kevin Roads »

Thanks for the info, Truvelo, you know much more about streetlights than me.
Truvelo wrote: Wed Sep 08, 2021 22:55 Saying that, you mentioned the column is GEC not the lantern. The lantern may be a Beta 4 but the angle of the photo makes it hard to tell if the top of the lantern is tapered.

As for the lamp type it is definitely a mercury type lantern although you need to be there at night to see what colour the light is.
I assumed it was a GEC column as the access plate is marked 'GEC' but I didn't imply that the lamp wasn't GEC. I will try and get some photos of the lamp top; I've Googled some pics of Beta 4s so know what you are looking for.

I'll also try and see if it's working and what colour it glows.

Thanks,
Kevin
Last edited by Kevin Roads on Fri Sep 10, 2021 13:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by RichardA626 »

Stockport has quite a few concrete columns but slowly they are being replaced, swan-necks were common on side roads until about 10 years ago when a lot were sleeved or replaced by metal columns.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Bfivethousand »

Something I hadn't consciously noticed until last week...

The sleeve fittings on the concrete columns local to me have fairly recently been replaced with a new sleeve holding a low-energy lantern. Interesting that even now my local highway authority is satisfied to persist with the columns despite the advances in lighting technology.
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Jonathan24
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Jonathan24 »

Quite a few concrete posts in Silsden, of varying types and descriptions

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.90600 ... 384!8i8192
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Chris5156 »

L.J.D wrote: Thu Sep 09, 2021 18:57 Barnsley still has lots of these beauties all over their main roads. I'd say the sleeves date back from the late 90s and I always thought they did a good job blending the sleeve in with the concrete because they painted them. I bet the columns date back to 70s or 80s. Id be interested to see what brackets they originally had. It's just a shame they are now replacing the SOX with LED when they fail. I always thought that SOX lantern really suited the sleeve and columns. There's tons of concrete columns left in Barnsley. I imagine sleeving them all in the 90s saved alot of them.
The column in the link there is much older than that - probably 1950s but may be late 40s. It was manufactured by a company called Stanton. Mike Ashworth has a catalogue from 1948 showing what it might have looked like, though other outreach arm styles were also available.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by haymansafc »

Over the last couple of years, we've unfortunately lost the majority of what concrete stock we had left. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said it was in the region of 75-80 per cent. The surviving concrete posts on the main roads in town were gone over a decade ago. I'm unaware of any left. The survivors are now dotted around in small 'pockets' on the side streets. I'm not aware of any which now retain their original concrete brackets. The surviving concrete stock are now all sleeved. About half of them we're sleeved back in the mid 1980s. That date is only an estimate as I remember the galvanised steel of the brackets still looking reasonably fresh when I was a child.

About two years ago outside our house, we did have the sole surviving concrete column complete with it's original concrete bracket on our street. It had a top entry Beta 5. Here it is:

Concrete1.png
Concrete1.png (63.81 KiB) Viewed 3998 times

The concrete column still survives, but has since been sleeved with a new, post-top LED lantern. We're glad the column wasn't removed because it's removal would have damaged the garden wall as it's practically built around it. I suspect this was one of the reasons why the column was retained. It's one of five concrete columns left in the street.

There was also at least three of these original swan necks within walking distance of our house, but sadly all three were replaced in their entirety at the same time ours was sleeved.

Concrete2.png

Go back 20 years, these swan-neck concretes were still a very popular sight in this particular suburb.

Lastly for now:

This larger column, which is a bit of an oddity as it's now on a residental side street but clearly a 'main road' size of column. It was a section of the A41 downgraded many decades ago. It still survives and is basically the next column north to the one above. I'm very surprised it survived the latest cull of concrete column removal, so I suspect it's on borrowed time. This design of sleeve was typical of what was done (again, estimated) in the mid 1980s.

Concrete3.png
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Truvelo »

That swan neck you posted is what I refer to as a triangular type as it has three sides to its profile. I'm not sure who made them as it clearly isn't a Stanton design. They were common in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley until the end of the 20th century. I took this is 1994 when a lot of side road lighting in the borough was still lit by mercury. Sadly it has all gone now. Here's a modern view of that image. https://goo.gl/maps/fNJoM3YsrqZHELQZ6
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by Bryn666 »

Truvelo wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 21:46 That swan neck you posted is what I refer to as a triangular type as it has three sides to its profile. I'm not sure who made them as it clearly isn't a Stanton design. They were common in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley until the end of the 20th century. I took this is 1994 when a lot of side road lighting in the borough was still lit by mercury. Sadly it has all gone now. Here's a modern view of that image. https://goo.gl/maps/fNJoM3YsrqZHELQZ6
I'm fairly sure they're Concrete Utilities designs.
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Re: concrete lamposts!

Post by L.J.D »

haymansafc wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 21:27 The concrete column still survives, but has since been sleeved with a new, post-top LED lantern. We're glad the column wasn't removed because it's removal would have damaged the garden wall as it's practically built around it. I suspect this was one of the reasons why the column was retained. It's one of five concrete columns left in the street.
There's always this option :evil:. Looks absolutely terrible
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