174DAA. Off Smith Street, Newtown, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, West Midlands With thanks to Leo Conway for discovering this Survivor. Installed at the end of a small parking area for use by residents of the adjacent Unett Walk is a 15 ft (5 m) Revo tubular steel column supporting one of that company's 'Hadfield' lanterns, for 80 - 125 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamps. While these 1960s' lanterns were once commonplace throughout Birmingham, very few examples survive in the modern era - this example could be a 'forgotten' example, owing to it being off the main publicly-adopted roadway. Formerly, the area now occupied by Unett Walk was home to the Hampton Junior & Infant School (which was renamed from the original Smith Street School), although the column will have been installed following the clearance of the school site for new housing, rather than being a leftover remnant from when the school existed.
The column features the usual Birmingham specification single ladder bar to one side of its shaft, as well as the wider-than-usual base section.
The Hadfield lantern is in reasonable condition, although its original glass bowl has been replaced with a now-discoloured polycarbonate replacement.
An MBF lamp is still believed to be installed within the lantern, and is shown to be operating in daylight in earlier Google Street View images. Whether this fault was resolved or not, is unknown, but if the lamp is still running continuously, it has become so dim now that its output would be highly limited.
The pre-1974 Birmingham Coat of Arms is cast into the column's inspection door.
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