Off Fox Hollies Road, Thimble End, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, West Midlands With thanks to Leo Conway for informing me of these Survivors. Located on the access road to the Deanery Primary School are two 4·26 m Thorn G7 aluminium columns. These are a special column, and were designed to support the Gamma 7 post-top lantern only, which these particular examples do, unsurprisingly, though only one of the two lanterns is intact these days; the second is in poor condition, having lost its bowl, canopy and lamp through vandalism and/or damage from adjacent tree branches. Two further Q7 columns (also with missing lanterns) were still extant elsewhere on the road in August 2008, but had gone by October 2010.

The column supporting the largely intact Gamma 7 is at the junction of Fox Hollies Road itself, and supports a non-standard No Entry sign.

The Gamma 7 could accommodate an 80 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) or 70 Watt SON (high pressure sodium) lamp, with the lamp control gear being housed in the column base.

The lantern was billed as an evolution to the Gamma 5, following on from the success of that lantern's ability to be part of the column (as an option) by having the bowl bolt directly onto a flared column spigot. In 1963, it was highly commended in the Council of Industrial Design's competition for Group 'B' lighting installations.

Perhaps because of its simple construction, the Gamma 7 remained in production until 1987 (at least), although as the school opened in 1980, these examples will be a little older than that.

A small portion of the bowl is damaged towards the top of the cylinder.

The column's inspection door, while misshapen, remains in place.

The second column is to be found at the end of a small footpath that was produced by narrowing a section of the access road.

Trying to picture the remnants of the lantern through the trees was a rather difficult task, although this angle reveals that the lampholder is broken. Two of the grub screws employed to secure the lantern to the column are visible too.

The Thorn QC67 identification plate riveted to the column remains intact.

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