Local WRTL Circas

The Circa was formerly a Kingswood lantern, but became part of WRTL's product line after Kingswood was absorbed by WRTL in the late 1990s. In Derbyshire, the Circa is only to be seen in Derby's Pride Park; an area of land formerly occupied by (predominantly) the expansive Locomotive Works, although the land was also used to accommodate a gasworks, a gravel pit and a landfill site. After lying largely derelict for many years, the site was redeveloped into a thriving business park, with the street furniture being vastly different to anything that had been seen in Derby previously. Owing to the railway connection, a 'heritage' theme was selected for the site's street lighting, with the columns painted red with cream embellishments - the colours of the old Midland Railway. The columns are slightly incongruous in this style and colour, owing to many of the buildings on the land being built in a contemporary style. Nevertheless, the installations are very distinctive because of their daytime appearance. Interestingly, the first road to open on the site (Derwent Parade) in CIRCA 1996 was instead lit with Urbis Saturns (which look identical to the layman); the Circa then being specified for all subsequent extensions to the road network.

Pride Parkway, the main artery through the site, has columns installed in an 'opposite' configuration, creating a symmetry in the street lighting.

The lanterns attach to decorative 'hoop' style brackets.

The polycarbonate lantern bowls have discoloured slightly over the years, owing to their being exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sunlight. Incidentally, these columns carry 'DY'-prefixed maintenance numbers, meaning that they post-date Derby becoming a unitary authority, which occurred in 1997. Indeed, only the columns installed on what became Derwent Way were listed on the old inventory system that covered the entirety of Derbyshire, and even then, they don't appear to have existed on site at the time. After Derby became unitary, a new and completely separate inventory system was used, and so all additional lighting for the site would only have been added to that.

The columns are standard 10 m tubular steel columns but are fitted with cast iron embellishment kits, in order to enhance their appearance. The base section of this column was damaged.

Shorter columns (and smaller lanterns) are employed on the bridge that allows vehicular traffic to pass over the tracks of Derby Midland Railway Station and head into (or out of) Derby City Centre. These columns have flange bases and bolt directly to the bridge structure.

Some of the lanterns have screening applied to the backs of their bowls as a way of preventing light from being cast backwards, towards the railway station.

The next lantern along didn't appear to be fitted quite squarely to the bracket.

The lanterns over the bridge run 70 Watt SON-T lamps. The type of reflector seen here is also employed in the WRTL Vectra lantern.

The sealed lower hemisphere of one of the larger lanterns was seen to be hanging open when these pictures were taken.

From the other side, the innards of the lantern are revealed. The lamp control gear is attached to a plate in the top section of the lantern, with a miniature photocell being located nearby.

Back in 2005, one of the columns was missing its lantern, following (I assume) a vehicle colliding with the column. Part of the bracket scrollwork has detached from the column shaft.

A replacement column (of similar visual appearance) was installed here in due course.