163A. High Street / Soden's Avenue / St Leonard's Walk, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, Warwickwshire With thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Installed on both Stanton 10F 15 ft (5 m) concrete columns and pole brackets along the High Street are a number of ELECO HW-747 lanterns, dating from the 1960s, and still going strong in December 2023. Although designed to run 45 - 60 Watt SO/H and SOI/H lamps, rapid advances in sodium lamp technology means that they now run 35 Watt SOX lamps instead, which are the same physical size as the old 60 Watt lamps were.
The first column-mounted example is to be found just off the High Street, on Bagshaw Close.
Sadly, the Perspex bowl is damaged, although this does allow the low-slung reflector above the lamp (which conceals the chunky 1960s' lamp control gear components) to be glimpsed.
The bowl damage has allowed debris to gather within the lantern, obscuring the lamp. A small spider below the lantern appears to be defying gravity!
Nearby, the first pole-mounted example came into view.
The installation's maintenance number is applied to the side of the bowl, rather than on the pole itself. Two disused fuse carriers for the overhead electricity conductors are tied together nearby.
As the original means of isolating the supply to the lantern would have been a small porcelain fuse positioned within the Revo Tipton box on the end of the bracket, a modern GRP enclosure containing a proper fused cut-out now serves as the somewhat safer method of deactivating the supply.
A short distance away, this example was seen.
The lantern has been drilled to accommodate a modern Royce Thompson Oasis 2000 photocell. Sadly, the bowl here is damaged too.
This installation still relies on the porcelain fuse for its means of protection, and the cover is missing from the box too.
Viewing the lantern from the other direction reveals that the bowl damage on this side includes the refractor panel.
The next example was in far better condition, however.
A slightly different style of top-entry bracket existed here.
Remarkably, this bowl was still transparent, although it did sport a crack in one side.
Two consecutive wooden poles supported HW-747s here.
The foreground lantern's bowl was another that had become translucent over time...
...while the bowl on the background lantern (again, fitted with an Oasis 2000 photocell) remained transparent.
This example was to be found on the slight bend in High Street.
The two-part detector for a Royce Thompson P42 photocell is installed on this lantern, although the disused porcelain insulator attached above the bracket suggests that the original switching method for these lights was the 'fifth core' method, whereby a dedicated live conductor was employed for the street lighting, and would be connected to a time switch (or photocell) mounted at the start of the cable run.
The final High Street example saw a return to Oasis 2000 switching.
This HW-747 may have received a replacement bowl in the past, as the type fitted now resembles the (rather fragile) vacuum-formed bowl that my own example uses.
The example on Soden's Avenue saw a return to column-mounted examples.
The bowl here was in immaculate condition, with the 35 Watt lamp visible in all its glory.
The original lamp support is missing, however, with a twist of wire serving as a makeshift substitute.
By comparison, the example on the adjacent St Leonard's Walk had a much more translucent bowl once again.
The underside of this bowl featured numerous cracks, sadly.
The damage allowed the lamp to be observed.
Amazingly, the two-part photocell detector fitted here was a 1980s' Horstmann T24 / T26 type - still going strong!
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