113DBA. North Street / Church Street, Rothersthorpe, Northamptonshire With thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Attached to various wooden poles in this small village are lanterns still running 80 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamps in December 2023 - three of the lanterns are ELECO HW-872 / Ware Mk. 3s; the fourth is an AC Ford AC850. The ELECO lanterns are likely to date back to the 1960s, whereas the AC850 will be a much newer product.
Three of the wooden poles only support the street lighting apparatus and nothing else, but may have supported electricity cables in the past. This example is to be found on North Street.
The top spike on the bracket finial is broken, although the three vertical decorations remain intact.
Ordinarily, the HW-852 incorporates a Perspex bowl - if one were ever fitted to this lantern, it is long gone now.
The lantern seems especially miniature when viewed from the ground.
The wood has split along the line of the left-hand bolt that secures the bracket to the pole.
A little further down North Street, another example came into view.
A Royce Thompson photocell bracket (fitted with a Zodion photocell) provides the means of automatic switching.
The bracket here incorporates an AC Ford finial at its end.
The control gear box is a GEC product, as proven by the company's logo being stamped on the front.
The final HW-852 is on Church Street.
As this example does retain a bowl, in all likelihood, the other two probably had them originally too.
A drawback to the presence of the bowl is that the inside becomes a trap for wasps, with their slain carcasses lying in the bottom.
A non-original GRP enclosure houses the fused cut-out.
The shadow of the eponymous church of St Peter and St Paul is cast on the wall of an adjacent building.
Owing to rusting, the GEC logo is barely visible on this control gear box.
A little further down Church Street, the AC850 comes into view.
Although much of the pole is covered in ivy, there will not be a separate control gear box installed here, as the AC850 incorporates its own control gear.
As is common with this lantern, the polycarbonate bowl has discoloured from the high ultraviolet light content of the mercury lamp.
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