197P. Welkin Road, Lower Bredbury, Stockport, Greater Manchester Installed on the access road that leads to the historical Welkin Mill are a number of 15 ft (5 m) Concrete Utilities' Avenue 2D columns with top-entry Arc 2 brackets. All support GEC Z9465 lanterns, which are designed to run 90 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamps, and be installed at a mounting height somewhat greater than these examples are set at (typically, 8 m (25 ft). The actual lamps fitted are 35 Watt, however, which is more suitable for this reduced mounting height, though why lanterns designed for running this size and wattage of lamp anyway were not specified is a mystery. The Mill has had several owners in its long history, and with these lights dating from the late 1950s or early 1960s, they might either have been installed by the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, which owned the site from 1930 until 1964, or Courtaulds, which was the owner between 1964 and 1967.
The first column on the road is to be found a short distance away from Stockport Road West.
The blackened 35 Watt lamp is visible within the lantern; surprisingly, this one still works at night. A Zodion photocell (not original to when the lantern was fitted) can be seen at the front of the canopy.
The bowl is possibly a vacuum-formed reproduction.
The second example hasn't fared quite as well.
The bowl is battered and broken. This has allowed the internal reflector / gear tray to become visible within the lantern. I assume that 35 Watt control gear is fitted, as 90 Watt would have overdriven the lamp rather substantially!
The damage was less on the next lantern.
This too had a replacement bowl fitted.
This column was to be found on a slight bend in the road.
The extra length of the Z9465 lantern causes the rear of its canopy to be positioned very closely to the front of the bracket curve.
The next column must have been struck by a vehicle, as it was leaning slightly, carried a vertical crack up the front of its shaft, and the lantern was in poor condition.
The bowl is missing completely, and the lamp is smashed. A short length of asbestos-sheathed wire hangs limply out of the porcelain lampholder.
The following installation also looked decidedly unloved.
Even the lampholder is broken on this example.
Although the next lantern was intact, it had detached from the bracket, and was hanging by its supply cable.
The tensile strength of the cable must be high for it not to have snapped at having to support the heavy lantern for an extended amount of time. Google Street View imagery shows that the lantern was still affixed correctly in October 2020, but by September 2023, the surrounding tree foliage is too dense to be able to discern whether it had started hanging.
We can but hope that the tree branches will provide a means of breaking the fall if / when the lantern does detach!
The penultimate installation before reaching the mill was still in reasonable condition.
These pictures were taken on an especially chilly morning in January 2025; a light covering of frost was present on the concrete.
The original inspection door was missing, and a makeshift replacement was secured to the column using cable ties. Notice the slight hairline crack in the front of this column too.
The bracket on the final column had rotated by 90 degrees, causing the lantern to become parallel to the carriageway.
The canopy also had a thin layer of ice on it, proving that this lantern would not be in nightly service.
The original door to this column was also missing, and had also had a replacement panel placed over the aperture. This had slipped downwards, however, allowing a cast iron cut-out to be seen within the base.
This video discusses these installations:
The mill building itself is home to some interesting Survivors - these appear to be a top-entry variant of ELECO's 'SilverRay' lantern for 250 - 400 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamps. The first to be documented is around the side of the mill buildings. The picture is altered to remove some graffiti that had been applied to the wall below.
A rather substantial coupler allows the top-entry lantern to be accommodated on the bracket. Just visible on the canopy is the ELECO logo.
Remarkably, the glass bowls are intact to all but one of the examples.
This example is also on the side of the building. As these lanterns are usually side-entry, the same basic casting is employed here; hence, the disused protuberance on the rear of the lantern that would be the side-entry connector on such models.
This example is near the front of the building. The LED floodlights installed nearby suggest that none of these lanterns are in operation any longer.
The blue paint that was applied to the previous two brackets is not present here.
The only example to be missing its bowl is situated near the front entrance to the mill. The supply cable is severed, and wrapped around the bracket structure.
An MBF lamp is still present in the lantern - judging by its size, it might be 400 Watt. It may even be a self-ballasting mercury lamp, as there does not appear to be any provision for external control gear with any of these installations.
A portion of the phosphor coating has worn away from inside the lamp. Two mirrored reflectors installed inside the lantern would provide some optical control.
A further two examples are to be found further along the building. Again, floodlights installed below them suggest that these are abandoned.
The foreground lantern again demonstrates the quirky shape of these fittings.
Surprisingly, the brackets seem to have been rewired at some point in their lives - the steel wire armoured supply cabling appears too new to be original.
As a bonus, junction 26 of the M60 motorway falls behind Welkin Road, and was still lit with high mast lanterns running high pressure sodium (SON) lamps at the time of photographing.
Five of the high mast's nine lanterns, which look to be WRTL HML 400s (the descendent of the GEC Z3430), were operating in daylight at the time.
BACK TO SURVIVORS IN GREATER MANCHESTER
CLICK HERE TO MAKE A MONETARY DONATION
© 2002 - English Street Lights Online