Crompton Churchouse

This amenity bollard is brand new and unused - in fact it was purchased through a local electrical wholesaler as the design has always been a favourite of mine, however installed examples are often quite badly weathered and so I wanted a new example, in order that it looked its best. The Churchouse, along with its sister bollard, the Crownlight, is available in SON, GLS and twin 9 W PL-S, however the 50 Watt MBF option is my personal favourite.

The bollard is of an aluminium construction, with a polycarbonate lens. A cylindrical tube is fitted inside the lens, and surrounds the lamp in order to prevent too much light from escaping sideways and upwards. This version of the Churchouse features a rounded base, although ground root versions are more frequently used. Interestingly, the circular base plate is also used as the base of the Crownlight (the sister bollard to the Churchouse) head. I have fitted the bollard to a weatherproof box, in order to make it portable. A P42E detector can be seen adjacent the bollard - this allows automatic operation of the bollard, although I can switch the controller (also in the box) to 'test' mode for continuous operation.

With the head removed, the bare lamp can be seen. Crompton instructions suggest that the bollard should not be operated in this condition!

The access door is flush fitting to the bollard, and has to be levered out. There is space for up to three armoured cables in the base, although I have simply wired into the cutout using flex.

For its height, the bollard provides excellent light distribution, and the design of the lens means that most of the output is concentrated downwards.

An example of an in-situ Churchouse bollard can be seen below; this is one of three installed in a car park off Penzance Road in Alvaston. The three bollards all run 40 Watt Crompton 'Permalife' tungsten lamps; with two out of the three still (as of June 2009) running lamps fitted in 1999. Sadly, by August 2020, none of the lamps were working any longer. As the photograph shows, purchasing a new bollard instead of a second-hand one appears to be well justified, given how corroded the top section has become!

The bollards are switched via a single Sangamo time switch located within a small feeder pillar at the car park entrance. An E27 lampholder situated above the time switch and fitted with a pygmy lamp (also, no longer working) is intended to provide an artificial light source to anyone working in the pillar after nightfall, when necessary. The time switch itself is operational, although it was set an hour fast when I looked at it.

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