2c - Cheese Hill, Swineshead, Boston, Lincolnshire

2c. Cheese Hill, Swineshead, Boston, Lincolnshire. Attached to a property in the small square area that surrounds St Mary's Church Hall is a top-entry AC Ford wall bracket supporting a Revo C13284/AL lantern - one of the altogether less common top-entry lanterns in Revo's catalogue, by all accounts. The 'AL' suffix in the lantern's name signifies that it features an aluminium canopy; a cast iron version was also produced. The actual identity of the lantern is questionable, as it today runs a household compact fluorescent lamp, when it perhaps ran a filament lamp in the past; however, the part code for the GLS version was C13285/AL (the one digit makes all of the difference!), and the C13284 was the mercury vapour lamp option - the only difference between the two designs being a different glass refractor bowl, in order to optimise the output from the two different lamp types. This lantern is fitted with the type of bowl that would make it a C13284, which suggests that it may have run a mercury lamp in the past - perhaps a self-ballasting mercury lamp, if the lantern is fitted with a bayonet lampholder.

As can be seen by clicking here, the lantern was devoid of its bowl in August 2009, revealing the compact fluorescent lamp inside. Was the current bowl obtained from new old stock, I wonder...if so, I applaud whoever did this!

A Royce Thompson P42 photocell detector can be seen attached to the front-facing section of the canopy. The thumbscrew that secures the bowl support ring appears to have seized, which has caused the bowl to lean at a slight angle - in order to gain access to the lantern, the bowl must have to be pushed upwards, and the threaded rod to which the thumbscrew is attached be moved out of the way.

Revo must have been a popular local supplier in 1950s/60s, as not only is one of their lanterns fitted here (and again on the previous page); a couple of the company's 'Critchley' bulkhead fittings are also installed in a small compound area around the back of the Church Hall:

The presence of a modern halogen security light positioned alongside the left-hand example suggests that these lights may no longer work.

These fittings could accommodate two 60 - 75 W tungsten filament lamps.

In 2011, a vintage parking sign existed opposite the Hall - by the time that the above pictures were taken, in 2015, it had been removed. Luckily, it was pictured for posterity when spotted originally.

Given the comment made on the second signplate from the top, perhaps none of the lights featured on this page should have been there after all! Incidentally, 10 CWTs (hundredweights) are equal to approximately 508 kg (1120 lb) - even the original Mini weighed 587 kg (1294 lb) - how old was this sign..?