Off Brixton Hill, Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth With thanks to Dwight for informing me of this Survivor. Installed on a footpath between Brixton Hill and Redlands Way is a disused 15 ft (5 m) 'Estate Minor' Concrete Utilities' column with a top-entry swan neck bracket and P152 luminaire (made by CU's lantern division, Phosware). This would have ended its days running a 35 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamp, but would have run a 60 Watt SO/H (later, SOI/H) lamp when new in the 1960s. A base-hinged Abacus 5 m tubular steel column, installed at some point between June 2021 and June 2024) supporting a faux-heritage post-top LED lantern stands alongside, which serves as the replacement lighting installation - the old column's base having been stripped of all switchgear and its electricity supply.
With vehicular access to this location being difficult, maintaining the old installation off ladders must have been challenging.
The new lantern was operating in daylight when pictured in July 2025. Back in October 2009, the P152 had the same fault, according to Google Street View.
An anti-vandal wire guard surrounds the P152's bowl - a rather shrewd move, considering how paper-thin the Perspex bowls on these lanterns are. A lamp is visible within the abandoned lantern.
The more pin-point LED light source of the new lantern contrasts sharply with the much wider beam distribution that the P152 would have had.
There is a certain irony in the fact that, had this picture been taken in the 1960s, it would be the Victorian-style lantern that would be the old-fashioned, outgoing type that was giving way to the modern concrete column and sodium lantern - how times change!
The column's empty backboard is seen, thanks to the inspection door having been removed and not replaced.
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