97K. Ogley Hay Road, Burntwood, Staffordshire Thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Two particularly notable installations remained in nightly service along this road in September 2022 - the first, a 1950s' British Thomson-Houston (BTH) Amber lantern attached to a wooden utility pole; the second, a GEC Z9481 attached to a GEC concrete column. Both lanterns run 35 Watt SOX lamps in the modern era, but were designed for 60 Watt SO/H, and later, SOI/H, lamps; the wattage reduction being the result of improvements to low pressure sodium lamp technology in the 1960s.
The Amber is pictured first. Given that the BTH name ceased to be used after 1959, this lantern was (at least) 63 years old when pictured.
Some modernisation work has occurred to the installation, however, with a plastic AC Ford fuse box having been installed in place of the (assumed) cast iron original on the pole, and the lantern being rewired with a length of flexible cable.
The lantern's original Perspex refractor bowl has been replaced with a vacuum-formed replica at some point, although this allows the large void above the lamp to be seen - an indicator of the size of the lamp control gear at the time that these lanterns were designed. A characteristic verdigris forms on the lower hook parts of the two bowl clips - an indicator that these are of a copper-based metal.
Peering up into the transparent underside of the bowl reveals that the current lamp was fitted in July 2022 - I am pleased to see that the "old order" is continuing to receive new lamps (while stocks remain), just to keep it going for a little longer.
All of the original control gear components are long gone, with a separate Philips ignitor being visible in this view. The previous BTH leak transformer would have combined the functions of ballast and ignitor.
The pole bracket is a Revo product, although the top-entry finial looks to be an AC Ford product, and may have been fitted when the Amber was, if another lantern was installed prior to this being fitted.
The lantern (literally) only just fits here, with the bracket's ornate scrollwork pressing against the rear of the Amber's canopy.
The concrete column supporting the Z9481 is a little further up the road. The design is identical to that seen on Pinfold Hill, Shenstone.
A product from GEC's little-known "Columba" range is installed atop this installation's bracket.
The column is installed at a slight angle to the adjacent footway, hinting at a past road realignment that did not see the column rotated to suit the changes.
Apart from a few small cracks in the bowl's plastic (the bowl here being an original GEC product), the lantern is in good condition.
The bracket is free of the damage that the Shenstone example had suffered, although there is a slight gap in the cement between its base and the top of the column, which may worsen over time.
This lantern is devoid of any lamp control gear components at all, meaning that they must be housed in the column base. This lamp was also fitted in July 2022.
A replacement galvanised steel door, made by Fisher, serves as a replacement for the original GEC aluminium door.
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