10d - Mount Pleasant Road, Repton

10d. Mount Pleasant Road, Repton. Located on a rather rural section of this road is a somewhat out-of-place installation: an 8 m column supporting a Thorn Alpha 9 90 Watt SOX lantern on an otherwise column-free road. The fact that the column does not carry a local authority maintenance number perhaps gives you an idea that all is not quite what it seems with this installation...in fact, the truth is that the column is in private ownership - it was originally installed as a means of providing illumination to the car park for a nearby public house; however, this car park later fell into disuse (and indeed, is nowadays unrecognisable as such; the land having reverted to nature after being closed), with the column's bracket being rotated in order that the lantern was instead positioned over the carriageway, allowing it to continue serving a purpose, and being maintained by a contractor as and when required. Despite not being in the best of conditions, and the fact that it is somewhat surplus to requirements, the lantern is (at the time of writing), still operational at night.

The detector for the Royce Thompson P42 two-part photocell can be seen attached to the lantern's canopy; the control gear for the lamp being situated in the column base.

This close-up reveals the damage that has occurred to the front of the bowl, resulting in dirt forming within the inside of the luminaire.

This damage can be more clearly seen directly below the lantern.

When viewing the installation from the other side, evidence of the former car park's existence is limited at best; the only sign of the land's previous use being the (barely visible) wooden bollards just behind the grass verge.

The column is believed to have been installed by the East Midlands Electricity Board (as was) in the 1980s; given the extensive growth of the bushes and trees within the area, the column cannot have served its intended purpose for long before the car park was abandoned in favour of a more convenient piece of land located adjacent the pub - these pictures were taken in April 2015.

One final close-up of the damaged bowl.

This installation was removed in late 2020. I was able to save the lamp control gear and P42 relay, however.