Deykin Avenue, Brookvale Village, Aston, Nechells, Birmingham, West Midlands With thanks to AgentHalogen_87 for informing me of this Survivor. Situated at the eastern end of Deykin Avenue, adjacent some industrial premises, is a 25 ft (8 m) GEC ZP1039 - ZP1044 concrete column, designed for supporting a top-entry lantern, but instead, it is adapted to accommodate a Z9554 lantern, for 135 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamps, instead, using pipework components that provide the necessary right-angled bend to allow the side-entry lantern to be positioned correctly.
As both the lantern and column could date back to the 1960s, the 'alteration' to the bracket may have occurred when the installation was new, rather than the Z9554 replacing an earlier top-entry lantern, though you would like to think that the installer ordered the right equipment initially, and didn't have to resort to such an unorthodox bodge!
Feeding the lantern supply cable through the bracket and down the column must have been especially challenging.
The rear bowl hinge is missing, causing that part of the bowl to sag downwards. A common design flaw with Z9554 (and later Z9554M) bowls is that a vertical structural crack can develop between the rear of the refractor panel and the remaining Perspex; eventually, the back of the bowl can fall away completely if the crack is able to extend down both sides and across the underside.
This view of the bracket and lantern from a different angle highlights the rather bizarre setup for this installation.
The column door is missing, allowing a very rusty leak transformer, and heavily corroded capacitor, to be seen. The internal wiring is very untidy, with the braiding on the Vulcanised India Rubber (VIR) insulation of the supply cable beginning to fray and crack in places. What appears to be a steel wire armoured (SWA) cable serves as the lantern supply cable - if that is the case, whoever installed that truly was a masochist, given the three ninety degree bends in the bracket!
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