45. Former Pastures Hospital, Burnaston (Mickleover Country Park). Despite the hospital's site having been redeveloped for new housing in the early 2000s, a few examples of the old street lighting still remain in place; albeit now in private ownership. Judging by the lanterns that can be seen attached to these remaining installations, GEC was the preferred supplier for the local Health Authority at the time when the lighting was last renewed around the site, with the Z9539 55 Watt SOX lantern being particularly favoured. Indeed, a Z9539 in my collection was removed from this site.
The hospital's former Social Club remains in use; the access road leading to it being private. The first column to be seen on this road accommodates a Z9539 - the side-entry bracket being adapted in order to accommodate the top-entry lantern. When these pictures were taken in 2005, the lantern still appeared to be in operational condition.
A decade later, the installation is still extant, but is no longer in use.
Oddly, the gear tray has been removed from the lantern, leaving just the canopy and bowl. By 2019, the lantern and bracket were missing completely.
A Stanton 10F concrete column followed. This too accommodated a Z9539 - perhaps the lantern above had also been fitted to a concrete column, and was re-used when the column was replaced.
This installation was little changed in 2015. A security fence had been erected in the intervening years, in order to increase security to the Social Club.
What appeared to be a swarm of wasps had gathered in the bowl (and had subsequently died)- the slight damage to the underside of the polycarbonate allowing them access.
Another Stanton 10 column followed; this example had been sleeved and the lantern changed to a Z9538.
By 2015, the Z9538 had been replaced with an Urbis ZXU1.
Another tapering sheet steel column is situated alongside the Social Club's car park. In 2005, this supported a Z9536.
A decade later, and a ZXU1 was fitted here as well.
When the new lantern was fitted, the bracket was removed.
Nearby was an identical column; this time, a Z9484 was fitted. This column has since received a ZXU1 too.
A Z9532 was fitted to a bracket on one of the corners of the Social Club.
Although this lantern still survived in 2015, the outer bulb of its 35 Watt SOX lamp was severely blackened when pictured. By 2019, all of the concrete columns on the access road to the social club had been replaced with steel columns supporting OrangeTek 'AriaLED' lanterns. The steel columns had been retro-fitted with these lanterns too, whilst this wall bracket had been removed completely.
The hospital's former chapel has a wall bracket-mounted Z5560 installed above the main door. In 2005, this lantern was out of use; however, it was retained when the chapel was converted into a private dwelling and was subsequently returned to operation.
Although difficult to see here, a domestic compact fluorescent lamp now exists within the lantern.
I would love to see the lantern and bracket restored, but at least they weren't scrapped as part of the chapel's renovation.
Edmund's Square formerly provided on-site accommodation for hospital staff. The houses are now in private ownership; however, the road has not been adopted by the Local Authority and so again, the old lighting remains in use. Two Concrete Utilities Byway columns are installed on the grassed central island for this circular road.
The Byway is essentially Concrete Utilities' answer to Stanton's 10 series.
Neither of the lanterns is fitted with a photocell, and are always seen operating simultaneously (unless one requires a lamp change, of course!), owing to a master control photocell being fitted to a substation on the adjacent Hospital Lane.
The join between the column and the bracket is clear here. Despite the columns easily being at least 40 years old in 2015, no signs of spalling are present around the joint.
A small amount of dirt had gathered in the bowl of the right-hand lantern, though it too was still very much in nightly use.
Notice that these lanterns are installed 'backwards' - the bowl clip is meant to be situated at the rear of the lantern, and would be on a side-entry lantern. On the top-entry version, there is obviously nothing from preventing the lantern from being installed either way around (nor would there be any noticeable detrimental effect on light levels, owing to the nature of a SOX lamp's light distribution), although the presence of the GEC logo on the canopy at the lamp cap end of the lantern normally ensures that this end faces forwards.
The column's steel door has rusted, and the unusual 'drop-latch' style lock has clearly failed, as evidenced by the stainless steel Tespa bands that have been wrapped around the column, in order to secure the door.
Similar to Edmund's Square, Wilson Close also dates from the days of when the hospital was in use - the houses installed on it also serving to provide accommodation for hospital staff. Again, these dwellings are all now in private ownership, and, unlike Edmund's Square, the road has been adopted, which involved the installation of new street lighting. Prior to this, some very unusual columns were installed on the cul-de-sac. The bases were constructed from brick, with access panels located in the backs of these. The bases were topped with concrete plinths, from which relatively short steel tubes emerged from the centres. Placed on top of these were harp-shaped brackets, again fitted with Z9539s. One of the lanterns on this unusually triangle-shaped cul-de-sac was fitted with a photocell, which group-switched the other lights. Owing to the lack of any official contract for maintaining these lights, only two of the lanterns ended their days running SOX lamps; the rest had been fitted with tungsten lamps, probably by the residents themselves. Although due to be removed as part of the road adoption process, the fate of these columns was more or less sealed when a construction vehicle crashed into one, demolishing the brickwork. The structure was rebuilt (presumably as a temporary measure), but it wasn't long before new 5 m steel columns fitted with Philips XGS 103 35 Watt SOX lanterns were installed, and the old lights removed for good. This pre-digital photograph from early 2001 demonstrates the appearance of these unusual columns.
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