Saw this on saturday https://drive.google.com/file/d/16NvMJq ... sp=sharing column is triangular in cross section but with truncated corners making it an irregular hexagon. Row of them along a footpath in various states of repair, homes near them are late 1960's
Welly wrote:Question - why were concrete lamp posts made in the first place?
Was that due to shortage of steel after WW2? Or was it just fashionable?
Not that I have anything against them!
After the war, steel was in shorter supply and more expensive. Concrete columns could be produced cheaply and in plentiful supply, with the added benefit of not needing painting.
Concrete columns were appearing before the war, so fashion would have had an influence.
Reading wrote:Saw this on saturday https://drive.google.com/file/d/16NvMJq ... sp=sharing column is triangular in cross section but with truncated corners making it an irregular hexagon. Row of them along a footpath in various states of repair, homes near them are late 1960's
Yes, that's an old Concrete Utilities Avenue column.
Bryn Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already. She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Guess there area about 20 along the footpath behind the barriers in this gsv https://goo.gl/maps/QK7nbdiuDBM2 - you can see one in the picture (with a broken globe) but due to the angle you can't see the gooseneck - I suspect they haven't long to live as a lot of house building is taking place close to hear and that is the main route from it to Earley station and thus likely to be upgraded shortly
DavidNW9 wrote:An old thread but unless there's another for pictures here's one of the type still around in Northwood
These still exist on side streets in Cockermouth, many with the original sixties meat pie lanterns. Cockermouth is a good hunting ground for concrete standards with original lanterns.
Almost all of our concrete stock here has sadly gone. There was a huge swathe of replacement columns about five/six years ago. The more established Sabristi may remember that I used to comment a lot on them.
As far as I'm aware, no concrete columns survive on any main road in Ellesmere Port and haven't for some time – unless it's in some remote pocket which I never venture to. I think the final few survivors were on the B5463 Ledsham Road (between the A550 and A41) and those were removed coming up for two years ago.
Other than that, there's only a handful of concrete columns left on the side-streets – one such example is a top entry Thorn Beta 5 outside my house. It's the only concrete column left in our street with it's original concrete bracket (very similar to the above – just with a thinner column base). The few others left are either sleeved or have been replaced entirely. It's also the only SOX lantern left on our street.
Welly wrote:Question - why were concrete lamp posts made in the first place?
Was that due to shortage of steel after WW2? Or was it just fashionable?
Not that I have anything against them!
Also they don't need painting which the old cast iron posts needed every few years.
I'm guessing they were easier to make as well.
Many were sleeved though in the 1990s, but often with different lengths and with odd lanterns, creating a terrible mismatch, which typified the streetlights of West Yorkshire - an untidy mix of crumbling columns. A lot of the lanterns too, if I remember were held together with electrical tape. In all, this kind of bodgery did make a lot of places feel more run down than they actually were.
I'm glad that Solihull council are keeping most of the concrete stock as they are retrofitting instead. Yes there are a few crumbling examples but most are in decent condition especially the ones from the 1990s housing estates.
M19 wrote:Many were sleeved though in the 1990s, but often with different lengths and with odd lanterns, creating a terrible mismatch, which typified the streetlights of West Yorkshire - an untidy mix of crumbling columns. A lot of the lanterns too, if I remember were held together with electrical tape. In all, this kind of bodgery did make a lot of places feel more run down than they actually were.
Yes, growing up in Leeds in the late 80s and early 90s, this is very familiar and in some ways I always feel the place looks very different when I go home. It was quite normal to find no two lighting colums on a street to be exactly the same - different columns, different sleeves, different outreach arms, different lanterns.
The one outside our house (concrete outreach arm intact) would swing around over our driveway when it was windy, and stay that way for several months until the council van would come and move it back, and put another band of entirely ineffectual green and yellow electrical tape around the join between column and arm. A week or two later it would have spun round again.
Here's some remarkable concrete survivors near Rickmansworth on Chorleywood Close. That first one has what might be an original lantern; here's another that has had a new (orange sodium) lantern fitted since Google took their pictures.
I am guessing they're so large because they are on the original line of the main road, which was improved to one side. The one across the end of the cul-de-sac may have been moved from its original position when the road was cut off - I can't imagine these were specified brand new for a minor residential cul-de-sac otherwise.
There are two more on a little oxbow lake of bypassed road called Old Chorleywood Road a bit further up.
Chris5156 wrote:Here's some remarkable concrete survivors near Rickmansworth on Chorleywood Close. That first one has what might be an original lantern; here's another that has had a new (orange sodium) lantern fitted since Google took their pictures.
These columns are situated in the Three Rivers District. Phase 4 of Herts' LED programme will reach here in October 2019, so they are on borrowed time. The 'new' sodium lantern on one of the columns is probably not new and was repurposed as a temporary replacement until the LED lanterns arrive, along with the sleeving for the columns.
My street still comprises of post-top Phosco P178's on concrete columns, but in the last month one was replaced with a short steel bracket featuring a knackered XGS103 (side-entry). Come the summer, all this will be destined for the scrap-heap.
Chris5156 wrote:Here's some remarkable concrete survivors near Rickmansworth on Chorleywood Close. That first one has what might be an original lantern; here's another that has had a new (orange sodium) lantern fitted since Google took their pictures.
I am guessing they're so large because they are on the original line of the main road, which was improved to one side. The one across the end of the cul-de-sac may have been moved from its original position when the road was cut off - I can't imagine these were specified brand new for a minor residential cul-de-sac otherwise.
There are two more on a little oxbow lake of bypassed road called Old Chorleywood Road a bit further up.
Chris5156 wrote:Here's some remarkable concrete survivors near Rickmansworth on Chorleywood Close. That first one has what might be an original lantern; here's another that has had a new (orange sodium) lantern fitted since Google took their pictures.
I am guessing they're so large because they are on the original line of the main road, which was improved to one side. The one across the end of the cul-de-sac may have been moved from its original position when the road was cut off - I can't imagine these were specified brand new for a minor residential cul-de-sac otherwise.
There are two more on a little oxbow lake of bypassed road called Old Chorleywood Road a bit further up.
Yes, in Stockport, since the late 1990s they seem to have been using aluminium columns on minor roads but this is rare on main roads in the Borough for some reason. For many years now, Stockport have been using Stainton tubular columns.
Only have attachments, but found these Stanton columns yesterday on an old disused road around Hams Hall. No idea of vintage but must be 60s or 70s. There is actually a row of 4 of them.
Attachments
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