69D - Off School Road, Himley, Staffordshire

69D. Off School Road, Himley, Staffordshire With thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Situated within the grounds of the Himley Mill Care Home are four Stanton 7 15 ft (5 m) concrete columns with A-type (swan neck) top-entry brackets. These columns pre-date the Care Home, and are left over from the former Limes Sanatorium that used to occupy the site. As the current building footprint does not match that of the hospital's, one of the four columns is now situated within the middle of the lawn, when formerly, it lit a portion of the access road that led to the hospital. The columns support Thorn Beta 5 35 Watt SOX lanterns; these are replacements for the original lanterns, but all appear to have become disused and abandoned, as new columns supporting double floodlights are positioned to illuminate the access road instead.

This is the column that is, today, situated within the lawn. I believe that this same column is visible in this charming video from 1957 (at around the 1:05 mark), and of course, the original lantern was fitted at the time, although the footage is too grainy for a positive identification to be made with any certainty (it could be a GEC Z5540 'Small Wembley').

The lantern is filthy, and there is a delightful pool of stagnant water in the bowl.

The bracket is spalling heavily at its connection to the column.

The second column is positioned alongside part of the surviving access road.

Again, the bowl would benefit from comprehensive cleaning, but overall, the lantern looks less disgusting.

The third (and final) column is the first on the access road, and probably was when the hospital was here - the three columns are spaced some distance apart.

I was surprised at how much of the top-entry coupler was exposed - the lantern could have been rotated a few extra turns during installation to reduce the amount of thread on show.

From the other side, a small amount of mineral leakage from the concrete is present, though the spalling is relatively minor.

The lantern appears to be fitted with a domestic compact fluorescent lamp, rather than the correct 35 Watt SOX lamp.

The fourth column is on the sharp bend in the road where the driveway joins School Road; as it was covered in dense vegetation when I visited, I didn't picture it.

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