Off Osmaston Road, Rose Hill, Osmaston, Derby Situated within the grounds of the Great Northern Classics motoring museum are several Atlas and Thorn Alpha Three lanterns, with examples installed both on columns or wall-mounted. The Alpha Three was designed to run MBF (mercury vapour) lamps of wattages ranging from 250 - 400 Watts, although later incarnations introduced SON (high pressure sodium) and MBI (metal halide) options too. The building now used to house the motoring museum was constructed as part of the expansive Victoria Ironworks in the 1850s by Eastwood & Swingler. In 1928, the building was converted for use as a tram, and later, trolleybus, garage, while the remainder of the site passed to Rolls-Royce. With the closure of the bus garage in 1961, Rolls-Royce took control of the entire site, and it is during their occupation that the Alpha 3s are likely to have been installed. With that company having vacated much of the site by the mid-2010s, much of the area was redeveloped, and many of the Alpha 3s were lost during this period. Thankfully, as the old depot building now has a new lease of life, the remainder have been retained, although they may not work any longer.
The first two Alpha 3s are fitted to 25 ft (8 m) Stanton 1808 concrete columns, and overlook the car parking area for the museum. Of concern is the CCTV camera unit that is attached to the column's shaft - concrete columns should not have external equipment (such as this) attached to them, owing to the additional strain placed on the (elderly) structure. A camera was fitted here prior to Rolls-Royce abandoning the site, however. These installations were pictured previously when Osmaston Road itself was undergoing relighting as part of the Street Lighting PFI project.
One of the four bowl clips on this Atlas-branded example has become insecure.
atlas ALPHA THREE is visible on the rear aluminium casting.
The second of these columns is positioned a little further north, still within the car park perimeter.
Evidence of spalling is present at the top of the column, as well as at the end of the bracket. The condition has worsened since 2011, when my original pictures were taken, as a section of concrete adjacent the lantern was still in place at the time, but has since fallen away.
On this example, a front bowl clip has detached, although an elliptical lamp remains visible inside the lantern, and the distinctive white diffusion spot on the inside of the bowl doesn't appear to have faded significantly.
A tubular steel supporting a bowlless Alpha 3 survived the redevelopment work along the former factory's access road.
Google Street View imagery indicates that the bowl was already missing by August 2008.
A very grimy tubular lamp remains installed within the lantern.
A wall-mounted Atlas version with the lamp control gear housed within the lantern is visible around the back of the building.
The bowl seems more curved in appearance than exists on the standard Alpha 3.
Meanwhile, a separate gear example exists towards the back. This is also an Atlas example (the same rear casting detail is just about visible), but here, the rear bowl clip has disappeared completely, making the lantern appear to be a later Thorn type at first glance.
A little further down the same part of the building is this lone Beta 5, which would have run a 35 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamp when in use.
Finally, two sleeved Stanton 6 columns support Alpha 3s that overlook another car parking area.
These are genuine Thorn lanterns (probably dating from when the original concrete brackets were replaced by the sleeves) - the fact that the bowl seems to have become a small greenhouse suggests that omitting the two rear bowl clips from later versions may not have been a wholly advisable decision!
The second example is at the back of the site boundary.
The bowl hinge on this Alpha 3 has broken, causing the rear portion of the bowl itself to hang slightly loosely away from the lantern.
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