112EA. Whitchurch, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire Attached to several wooden poles within this village are GEC Z8691 lanterns - the gear-in-head version of the Z8591, which evolved to become the Z8896. As these lanterns were designed for running an 80 or 125 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamp, they may still have been configured to run such lamps when discovered in August 2023. Older Google Street View images reveal that ELECO HW-852s were employed in this area too, though all of these were long gone by the time that these pictures were taken.
One of the examples is pictured below; this is on Oving Road.
Unusually, the bowl has not discoloured; however, as the clip design differs slightly from that of the type seen on a Z8896 bowl, this could be an earlier design that used a plastic other than polycarbonate, and therefore, is unaffected by ultraviolet radiation.
Although a NEMA-type photocell is not employed, a more recessed photocell could exist on the canopy instead.
Further along Oving Road, the greater setback of this pole from the carriageway edge has required a longer outreach bracket to be used.
As the bracket has a five degree up-tilt at its end, while the lantern is intended for horizontal brackets, ultimately, the bowl will be at an angle of around ten degrees.
What looks to be a 1980s' Royce Thompson P6 photocell still switches this lantern on and off daily.
The next installation along saw a return to shorter outreach brackets.
The locking bolt has sheared on the installation's AC Ford fuse box cover.
The photocell here is a Royce Thompson S300PT, or a very similar product.
The final installation on Oving Road featured a pole with a slight backwards lean.
Once again, there was no obvious photocell fitted here, so a minicell may be employed.
This was the only Z8691 with evidence of dirt ingress within the bowl, probably because of this example's proximity to adjacent trees.
A single Z8691 survived on Appleyard Close.
This example uses a Royce Thompson P9 photocell that is embedded within the lantern body.
The low profile of the P9 makes it difficult to see when viewed at a sharper angle to the lantern.
Ashgrove Gardens is split into two separate cul-de-sacs. For a change, the Z8691 at the end of one of these is not attached to a pole bracket; instead, a 15 ft (5 m) ELECO 'Silverline' aluminium column with an HW-1226-3 short outreach bracket is installed.
The use of the longer lantern, especially one where the bracket's spigot outreach is too long, looks slightly peculiar. The presence of heavy-duty tape being wrapped around the lantern suggests that the bolts securing the cover over the lamp control gear compartment have failed.
The ELECO logo is cast into the column door.
Further along this same cul-de-sac, another pole-mounted example was seen. This one could have been installed as a column too, given that it has an underground service, and that the pole does not carry any overhead conductors (though it may have done originally).
Yet another photocell design is employed here.
The label has become rather faint with age, but zooming in on the photocell allowed me to read that this was another P6, but this one was manufactured in April 1996.
Moving to the other cul-de-sac, this (potentially disused) Z8691 was at the end of Ashgrove Gardens, at the junction with The Meadows. This latter road is far newer, and is lit with Philips ME 70s attached to hockey stick columns. One column is installed just out of shot, to the right of this Z8691, and may have served as its replacement; the pole bracket never being taken down, however.
The photocell here is attached to the pole itself.
This is a 1980s' P5, with a Royce Thompson fixing bracket. As the fuse carrier is missing from the adjacent cut-out, the lantern's disuse is confirmed.
Curiously, this is the only example to demonstrate a yellowed bowl, so perhaps, those that remain in operation received replacement bowls at some stage after this example was decommissioned, as a means of improving light output.
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