193I. Off High Street, Chepstow, Monmouthshire Situated in a private car park that is sandwiched between the High Street and Mount Pleasant is a 15 ft (5 m) concrete column and swan neck bracket combination that has been adapted to accommodate a Thorn 'Sunflood 500' halogen floodlight. The column is possibly a Broads and Company 'Broadcrete' product, judging by its base design. It stands abandoned, and in a rather poor (and dangerous, as we shall see) condition. Historical maps suggest that it has always been in private ownership, with the car park (possibly) having been the back yard for the nearby George Hotel in the past.
In the modern era, the column is fenced in by the railings and gate for the car park, but would have been open to the roadway originally.
The swan neck bracket shows evidence of cracking and breaking around its top section, whereas a section of concrete at the start of the column also has a visible crack in it.
The Sunflood no longer has a lamp fitted, and its aluminium reflector shows signs of corrosion. This probably wouldn't have been the original fitting to be installed here - I would guess that some sort of top-entry lantern running a GLS (incandescent tungsten filament) lamp would have been fitted when new.
The door is missing from the base section, allowing the internal wiring to be seen.
The door would have attached to the column using hinges attached to the right-hand side of the door aperture. The supply cable enters the column via a steel conduit, which then terminates into a steel enclosure. A short length of Mineral-Insulated cable (the original supply cable to the lantern) exits the top of the enclosure, but then re-enters the enclosure, where connector blocks attach it to a newer Twin & Earth cable that feeds the floodlight. Of concern is the severe impact crack that appears to separate the lowest portion of the column below the base compartment from the rest of it, with only the steel conduit and termination enclosure now supporting the entire column structure - I can but hope that the enclosure was secured to the backboard using especially long screws!
This view from the side shows how far the column is out of vertical, owing to the cracked base.
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