202G. London Road, Brandon, Suffolk Situated opposite Saffron Close is a 1960s' Concrete Utilities 'Avenue 3DNN' 25 ft (8 m) column and top-entry Arc 3 bracket supporting a GEC Z8403 lantern - one of the products grouped into the Company's 'Clearmain' range. Although designed for running 250 - 400 Watt mercury vapour (both MA/V and MBF types, thanks to an internal magnetic arc deflector that corrected the arc flow on MA/V lamps), a tubular high pressure sodium (SON-T) lamp of one of those wattages is fitted these days. A later 'Highway X' column, again, made by Concrete Utilities, is the next column along from this installation, and supports a GEC Z8526.
The column is fed on an overhead electricity supply, the same as some of the High Street examples are.
The lantern comprises a deep die-cast aluminium canopy and an attractive patterned glass bowl.
The lantern is designed to offer a cut-off light distribution; this may have been a requirement as RAF Lakenheath is further along London Road, and from viewing older Google Street View images, more identical installations were still extant in 2009, though this was the only one left by 2022.
The magnetic arc deflector seems to be in place above the lamp, even though its purpose is defunct, with the SON-T lamp being able to be operated horizontally without the need for any external auxiliary equipment.
Even with the 'wrong' lamp fitted, the bowl must produce a spectacular appearance at night.
Perhaps, the reason that this installation has survived as long as it has is thanks to the overhead supply - judging by the three-phase conductors behind the column, there may not be an underground electricity supply at this location.
Two eras of lantern switching feature on the lantern's canopy - a Telensa radio node on the left, which has superseded the Royce Thompson P42 detector located on the right. Of course, time switch or "fifth core" operation would have been the lantern's original switching method.
I wonder if the Highway X column and Z8526 combination served as a replacement for a damaged Avenue 3DNN column, and this was the nearest equivalent that could be ordered at the time.
The SON-T lamp in this lantern looks decidedly worn, suggesting that the lantern may not work at night.
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