69CAF. Off Middlemore Road, Handsworth, Birmingham With thanks to Leo Conway for discovering this Survivor. Attached to a building that forms part of the Middlemore Business Park (formerly, the factory for the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Works) are two AEI 'Brampton' 51/76706 lanterns, for 250 - 400 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamps; the forerunner to the Atlas / Thorn Alpha 7. As the BRC&W company ceased trading in 1963, the Bramptons may have been fitted in the immediate years preceding the closure - AEI itself would disappear in 1967, when Thorn bought the remainder of its lighting division, while the electrical division transferred to GEC.
One of the two Bramptons is pictured below; a high concrete boundary wall (and the sun being right behind the bracket) made capturing it rather difficult.
The wall bracket positions the lantern at a rather steep angle - the other example is identical.
Heavy ivy growth also restricted the suitable positions for photographing this installation.
The glass refractor bowls employed in the Brampton were also used in ELECO's P151 lantern.
The operational status of the fittings is unknown, though this one, at least, is intact, and relatively clean.
BACK TO SURVIVORS IN THE WEST MIDLANDS
CLICK HERE TO MAKE A MONETARY DONATION
© 2002 - English Street Lights Online