There is a similar setup on
Southwark Street surviving, albeit with different lanterns used. As you navigate further along you'll see that two are dayburning and prove to be SOX. I wonder if there are any other pockets of South London with such catenary survivors?
These second lot of catenary lanterns look like Elecos too, not GR2s but something from the pre-GR100/150/200 era.
I am truly amazed that such historic lighting still exists on such busy London streets. I think the fact these are on span wires has helped them survive in a way, I'm sure if they had been on conventional columns they would have had the chop years ago.
I think they're probably still there because of how complicated it would be to get them down! If they were replaced with column-mounted lighting, the lantern would have to be removed from the centre of a very busy street - with the access vehicle straying across both directions of traffic... and then the span wire would have to be detached from either wall in such a way that the wire doesn't fall down and hit anything on the road/pavement.
Those Eleco's look like HW509's, or similar. Aside from the non-cloudy bowl, the lantern shape is almost the same as a lantern I was hoping to get from a column due to be taken down (and by 'hoping' I had put a note in the column base. didn't get heeded though)I've just found pictures of the installation in question on Scott Bearford's site. He has identified them as HW743s (scroll down to view his photographs
). However
argue that the HW743 is a 55W SOX lantern.