134I. Forest Road, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent Located opposite the junction of Warwick Park is a 25 ft (8 m) cast iron column dating back to the early days of electric street lighting, and may have supported a carbon arc lantern originally. In more recent times, the column ran an Urbis Albany teardrop lantern, but this lost all of its innards at some point after 2012, with the remainder of the lantern disappearing after 2021, and the installation having been disused since then. Hopefully, this old lady will shine again once more in the future, but hopefully, with something a little more imaginative than an Albany fitted next time!
The column and bracket are highly ornate. No other columns of this type survive along the road, but surprisingly, the installation does not carry any listed status.
Very little appears to remain of the top-entry thread that would allow the lantern to couple onto the bracket - perhaps, this is why it was removed, if the lantern were found to be insecure.
Although the base looks to be a solid casting, there is actually a hinged inspection door, although it is camouflaged by the fluted decoration around the base.
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