Kent County Council is currently replacing all of its street lighting with LED. Tonbridge in Kent has undergone the change in the last two years, with Phosco P862s recently installed on the main roads and Phosco P852s installed some time ago in the side streets.
Thankfully there are a few old stragglers left - notably difficult-to-get-to lanterns, some top-entry lighting on swan-necks, some heritage lighting and some street lighting with metal halide lamps in them, which all emit a white light not far away from the 4000K colour temperature chosen for the LED street lighting. Most people wouldn't notice the difference, and perhaps the street lighting crews didn't either!
Tonbridge High Street has these heritage lanterns which hark back to the days of the carbon arc lights. This photograph and the next eight photographs of the High Street were taken in October 2017.
Most of these heritage lanterns run SON lamps, but there is the occasional metal halide lamp.
A close-up of one of the brackets and carbon arc-style lanterns.
These heritage lanterns and brackets were removed from service sometime between March 2020 and July 2021, in all likelihood as part of plans to sweep up the difficult lanterns left behind in Kent County Council’s replacement by LEDs programme.
The new brackets are a simple semicircle and the new LED lanterns are the D. W. Windsor “Strand A” type. This photograph was taken in July 2021.
The same view today. This photograph was taken in July 2021.
The same view today. Photograph taken in July 2021.
It is a shame that the brackets could not be retained. They appeared to be a very faithful reproduction of the original Victorian lamp standards.
Image source.The High Street’s reproduction columns, brackets and carbon arc-style lanterns weren’t original to the street. They seemed to have first appeared sometime in the 1980s.
This photograph looking north from the Big Bridge was taken in April 2019,
but this photograph from approximately the same location taken in 1982 by a photographer for Sainsbury’s shows the street previously had 8m high columns with Thorn Alpha Threes.The same view photographed in July 2021.
Just off the High Street in Castle Street is this rare top-entry Metropolitan Vickers (Metro-Vick) SO 'Fifty' lantern. Sadly it has been replaced with the adjacent column here, but the original column and lantern are still in situ. This photograph was also taken in October 2017.
The MetroVick SO50 lives on, albeit out of light. The adjacent SGS203 has been replaced. This photograph was taken in July 2021.
The main High Street bridge over the River Medway is lit with SON-running Phosco P109s. The River Medway temporarily splits into two in Tonbridge town centre, and the High Street bridge over the smaller of the two rivers is lit with these GEC Z8455 lanterns, which now run SON bulbs. This photograph was taken in September 2017.
The same view today. This photograph was taken in July 2021. The bridge has had its GEC Z8455 lanterns replaced with D. W. Windsor “Windsor” LED lanterns.
The Big Bridge carries the High Street over the River Medway. This photograph and the two below show the bridge’s five Phosco 109s and were taken in April 2019.
The bridge was also re-lit with D. W. Windsor “Windsor” LED lanterns but, puzzlingly, I have never seen them in light.
This photograph of the Big Bridge was taken in July 2021.
Also just off the High Street - in East Street - is this surviving old and deep-bowled top-entry SOX lantern - one of a pair. It looks like it could be a Phosco P122 (although there are no vertical ridges on the bowl ends), or an AEI Amberline Junior. This photograph was taken in October 2017, and I ought to revisit the lantern in daylight to see what it is.
A close-up of the mystery lantern (with the back of the bowl painted black). Photograph taken in October 2017.
The limited time left for this lantern can be foretold by looking further along East Street. Photograph taken in October 2017.
The lantern was an AEI/BTH Amber lantern running 35W SOX on a REVO column. This was a popular combination in Tonbridge up until Kent County Council's LED roll-out. The three photographs below were taken in March 2020.
Instead of swopping out the lantern to one running LED, the whole column was replaced.
This photograph was taken in July 2021.
Also on the edge of the Sainsburys car park is this GEC ZD10517. It sadly doesn't light up at night. This photograph was taken in July 2017.
A close-up photograph of the GEC ZD10517 also taken in July 2017.
This fabulous example of a Group A flying saucer has now flown off, and been replaced with a post-top mounted LED floodlight. The nearby Thorn Gamma Five "Group B" flying saucer lighting a pedestrian route between the River Medway and the Sainsburys car park is still in place, but it has not been lit for a long time.
As for the other old lanterns in my original post, the GEC Z8260 on railway land east of Tonbridge railway station is still in place, and still in need of replacement tubes. The other GEC Z8260 on railway land to the west of Tonbridge railway station has been replaced with an LED lantern.
The station car park also has these five "open" main road lanterns for tungsten or mercury lamps. This photograph and the next two photographs were taken in July 2017.
Sadly I have never seen them lit at night, although the lantern missing its refractor ring at the rear appears to be holding an MBF or SON-E lamp.
A final close-up view of the unusual installation.
These lanterns are still in place, but still not working.
Meanwhile in a refreshing change, a number of the Council-run car parks in Tonbridge were re-lit a few years ago with 3000K CDO-TT lamps. But as the lamps have expired, they have been spot-replaced with SON lamps.
The Council-run Waitrose and Iceland car park in Sovereign Way, as photographed in April 2019, with just two SON lamps in the circa. 29 lanterns in this photograph.
By December 2021, about 40% of the street lights had reverted from a white light source back to SON.
By May 2023, about 80% of the car park was back to SON.
The whole car park is on schedule to be 100% SON by sometime next year!