174FB. Off Granby Avenue, Lyndon Green, Garrett's Green, Birmingham, West Midlands With thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Located in the grounds of three separate organisations on this industrial estate are some notable installations - these comprise some wall-mounted Thorn Alpha 3s with the lamp control gear housed in the lantern; wall-mounted Alpha 9s, and two Falks 'Beaufort' post-top lanterns - it is the industrial estate that keeps on giving! Out of these installations, the Alpha 3s are likely to be the newest, with the Beauforts probably being the oldest, although all will have clocked up a few decades of installation by February 2025.

The Alpha 3s are pictured first; two of these are attached to corner brackets at the front of the building.

A small amount of damage is present to this lantern's acrylic refractor bowl, though this doesn't seem to have caused too much dirt to gather within the bowl. Notice that the supply cable is cable tied along the bracket, and enters the lantern from the side, rather than through the bracket tube.

The second bracket is installed at roughly the same height as the first was.

This bowl is intact, and is clean enough to allow a 250 Watt elliptical lamp to be seen within the lantern. A high-wattage halogen floodlight is installed alongside the lantern, and may have served as a replacement for it, or as a supplementary light (though 250 Watts of anything discharge isn't exactly dim!).

Another lantern was positioned around the side of the building. The bowl clip on the visible side had detached from the canopy, allowing a small amount of rainwater to gather within the bowl.

The building supporting the Alpha 9s was to be found a little further west on Granby Avenue.

This is a very early example of the Alpha 9, as evidenced by the bowl being physically deeper than on later examples (owing to the size of the lamp control gear components being so bulky), and opening from the long side, rather than from the back (and hinging forwards) as seen on later examples.

The bowl is very clean, allowing the 90 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamp to be seen clearly within it. The ballast appears to be an AME 53178.H type, which would date the lantern to the late 1960s, or early 1970s, owing to it referencing the earlier 100 Watt SOX lamp, prior to the re-rating of wattages after 1968, when improvements to the outer oxide coating allowed the lamp to run with greater efficacy, and thus, a reduction in the overall wattage. The lantern may, therefore, be badged as a British Lighting Industries (BLI) example, which was the company that was set up jointly by Thorn Electrical Industries and Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) after the former bought a 64% stake in the latter. As products continued to be offered by both manufacturers, the lantern could also be a version of the final incarnation of AEI Amber.

A newer Alpha 9 survives at the other end of the building.

This too may be a version with the lamp control gear installed within the lantern; however, as components became smaller, the need for a deep bowl was removed. As can be seen, this lantern features the later hinge and fixing positions too.

Two further 'older' Alpha 9s were installed around the side of the building, with another two installed on the rear corners. Given the abundance of newer floodlights here, the older lights are likely to be decommissioned.

The background lantern is seen first; again, the ballast's size demonstrates the need for the bowl to be deep on this version of the Alpha 9.

The lamp remains in place within the foreground lantern too, though judging by the blackening around the electrodes, it may have given up anyway.

Finally, the two Beauforts are attached to 15 ft (5 m) Stewart & Lloyd tubular steel columns. A third lantern used to exist on another column, but this was lost to two floodlights after August 2008.

This version incorporates a full-length opal Perspex cone for controlling the light distribution.

Shorter Perspex bowl options were also available, as were bare lamps with or without a glass refractor dome.

The remains of a wire cage; presumably, an anti-vandal measure, still surrounded the bowl of the second lantern.

The top section of the canopy has slipped out of position, and overhangs the lower section.

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