Derby's Street Lighting PFI Contract

Kedleston Road Service Road, Allestree - Part Two

This road was home to several variants of the popular Thorn Beta 5 35 Watt SOX lantern. All were due for removal as part of the PFI. The following photographs were taken on Sunday, 11th July 2010.

The first installation pictured supported a 1980s' Beta 5, which, unusually, appears to have retained its light grey paint finish applied to the canopy. The decision to paint the canopies did not continue for long, and the majority of the canopies that were painted later lost their paint from being installed outdoors. This lantern is clearly an exception to the rule.

Notice the PFI-spec SC1000 photocell fitted to this lantern:

Two late 1990s' 5 m tubular steel columns followed; complete with contemporary Beta 5s. The first featured a shallow bowl:

The second Beta 5 featured a deep bowl. As far as I am aware, Thorn produced both bowl types right up until the lantern was discontinued in 2008. While both bowl types were interchangeable on modern (1989 onwards) Beta 5s, earlier designs can only be fitted with the deeper bowls.

Finally, three consecutive Revo cast iron columns, all supporting top-entry Beta 5s, completed the lighting on the service road. The likelihood is that these columns would all have supported top-entry tungsten lanterns until the Beta 5s arrived.

The swan neck bracket on the first lantern was missing the top spike on its finial. This installation has no PFI column installed alongside it, as the replacement column would be installed in the hole vacated by the cast iron column when removed. The reason behind this is that the column is situated in-between two driveways; limiting the space available for installing the replacement column.

The same column is pictured again; albeit from two different angles this time.

A replacement column could be installed adjacent the next outgoing cast iron column, and thus was. This installation still retained the spike on the bracket's finial decoration.

The last cast (see what I did there?) featured slightly different scrollwork on the swan neck to the example pictured above, perhaps suggesting that two different people produced the two brackets.

Given the use of cast iron columns on this section of road, and concrete columns on the section featured in Part One, I would suggest that this section is pre-Second World War; whilst the other section is post-war. The style of the houses on the two sections is also completely different.

RETURN TO PART ONE

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