113CA. Crick Interchange, Crick, West Northamptonshire Located on the north-eastern embankment of the roundabout surrounding the M1 Motorway at Junction 18 is a long-disconnected and abandoned brick-built feeder pillar that would have supplied the street lighting on the roundabout in earlier days. This is likely to date right back to around 1959, when the first section of the M1 opened from Watford to Crick, before being extended north from 1964 onwards (though provision for future extension was incorporated into the design of the Crick Interchange, as this period map shows). The pillar is probably long-forgotten; I only discovered its existence after the many trees that had grown on the embankment were felled in 2024. Ideally, it ought to be preserved as one of the last-remaining pieces of street lighting infrastructure from the original, ambitious M1 construction project, though at least, it is now pictured for posterity.

I assume that the pillar would have had a door over the front of it originally. As it no longer houses a live electricity supply, this barrier is no longer required.

The incoming three-phase electricity supply enters the pillar through the duct hole on the right-hand side on the pillar floor. The supply cable is severed, but would have terminated in the cast iron cut-out immediately above it. Three outgoing cables (possibly also capable of running at three phases, but not necessarily running to this configuration on every cable) are seen exiting the pillar through the remaining duct holes. Of course, these ducts would be earthenware pipes, rather than PVC, as would be used in the modern era. Above the cut-outs, fused isolators allow each outgoing cable (as well as the incoming one) to be turned off, for maintenance purposes.

Two steel enclosures contain equipment for local circuits within the pillar, with the upper one supporting a now-broken ammeter, a Bakelite light switch (possibly intended for switching an internal bulkhead light, as still exist in larger pillars today, to assist engineers working in the pillars at night, though any such light fittings no longer seem to exist within the pillar - alternatively, the switch may have served as a manual override for the lighting), and a small cut-out with a missing fuse carrier.

Three Venner time switch cases indicate how the street lighting would have been controlled. Only one case retains its front cover, but no actual time switches remain at all. A couple of discarded porcelain fuse carriers rest on top of the enclosure supporting the time switches.

The time switches connect to a three-phase and neutral busbar, with the neutral shared between all three. Wires leading to the three outgoing cables tap on to the busbars at various points, with the 'blue' phase appearing to have carried the most tap-off points (complete with some rather dubious jointing of multiple cables in front!), and the 'yellow' phase wire between the time switch and the busbar having been replaced. The front cover is missing from the busbar enclosure, but no other protection against accidental contact with live parts (and don't forget that we would be talking around 415 Volts between phases!) would have existed - this being a 1950s' wiring setup, when common sense was in greater abundance than it is today (get off your soapbox, Mike). Two nests are visible on top of the busbar enclosure - one of which looks to have been formed using one of the time switch front covers as a base.

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