Cracking pictures David, and an excellent history to go with it. Just goes to show despite the march of LED, there are still gems about - for the moment. Thank you Phosco152. It's a shame that Frinton couldn't seamlessly transfer from the mercury Phosco P111 to the LED Phosco P111 and jump non-white light sources altogether, but until Essex County Council's policy changes away from SON, it looks like Frinton will be gradually turning orange.
Some of Frinton's Phosco P111s are now over 50 years old. This photograph of
The Galleon and Gardens in August 1965, has been uploaded to the
www.Frinton.org website:
The Galleon and Gardens in August 1965, from the
www.Frinton.org website.The same scene, with the same lamp-post still going strong, photographed last weekend (April 2016).
All the photographs in this post were taken in Frinton last weekend (April 2016), unless otherwise stated.
The southern end of Connaught Avenue has just been re-lit, sadly ending the similarly long reign of the Revo Horizons along this thoroughfare (see these online photographs:
photo 1,
photo 2,
photo 3).
Thankfully there are still a few Horizons left, like this one near the junction of Connaught Avenue and The Esplanade.
In the absence of the Horizons, it's the long reign of the mercury Phosco P111 that makes Frinton unique in Essex. Last Sunday was a lovely sunny day, and an ideal opportunity to supplement my last post of night-time photographs with some daytime photographs of Frinton's Phosco P111s.
Warning: very long post!A close-up of one of Frinton's original-spec Phosco P111s, some of which are over 50 years old. These are distinguishable by their pale blue colour, slightly mauve glass refractor ring and octagonal base which perfectly fit the octagonal CU "Byway X" columns.
Some of the cones on the original-spec Phosco P111s have turned cloudy after 50 years of UV exposure...
...and a smaller proportion of cones have turned green for the same reason.
When concrete columns started to go out of fashion, Phosco dropped the octagonal base and replaced it with a circular one. That makes this pale blue Phosco P111 one of the last pale blue-coloured P111s to be installed in Frinton.
In hindsight, the pale blue Phosco P111 and the octagonal CU "Byway X" column suited upmarket Frinton perfectly and helped impress upon tourists that they were visiting somewhere a little bit special.
In the lantern "timeline", we reach the first non-pale blue casual replacement Phosco P111s to be installed in Frinton. These were practically the same as the original-spec P111s but with the standard black finish.
After the colour change, the next change I noticed in Frinton's P111 casual replacements was the absence of the glass refractor ring. These were installed over a number of years and Frinton still has many dozens of these variants still extant to this day.
Also installed over many years, and with plenty of good examples surviving in Frinton to this day, was the Phosco P111 with the opaque cone.
After a good run of many years for the opaque P111 and the refractorless P111, the refractor ring made a reappearance, and was twice the size of the previous version. I think this was the last option available before Phosco moved the bulb up inside the hood of the lantern to create the P111 cut-off version.
The most unusual P111 in Frinton pays homage to the P109.
The most recent variant of the P111 to arrive in Frinton is the cut-off version.
Frinton continued to see the cut-off P111 in MBF-U installed while it was still on sale, in keeping with the rest of the town's mercury P111s.
After all these variations of the Phosco P111 over the last 40, possibly 50 years, the mercury version was discontinued by Phosco.
Essex County Council started installing the SON version instead, which now brings Frinton in line with the current street lighting policy throughout the rest of Essex.
One thing you'll never see in Frinton is a SOX Phosco P111, like this one in Colchester's Dutch Quarter. This photograph was taken in October 2013.
The P111s in Colchester's Dutch Quarter may have also started off as MBF/U and fallen victim to the 1970s energy crisis. I do not know if SOX P111s came with that practically useless refractor ring (in this instance) fitted as standard.
Having reviewed how Frinton and Walton Urban District Council and latterly Essex County Council have done incredibly well to maintain lantern uniformity for over half a century, a walk around Frinton last Sunday also indicated that the original lanterns and some of their casual replacements are beginning to tire. After over 50 years in service for some of them, this cannot come as a surprise.
This day-burner was spotted in Holland Road.
Some of the P111s have damaged cones, which are surviving in service and keeping the insides dry thanks to the copious application of electrical tape. There are enough P111s in the town like this to warrant the County Council ordering a dozen or so spare P111 cones from Phosco and replacing the damaged ones.
This P111 had lost its cone...
...but the cone hasn't gone far.
A rather alarming death for one of the town's original P111s.
And this one was gone altogether.
Not quite a perfect fit, but this clever use of a Thorn Gamma 6 cone keeps this Phosco P111 in nightly service.
Even some of the town's more recent casual replacements are ageing. Some of the later P111s' new plastic refractor rings are struggling to cope with the heat or are yellowing from the mercury lamp's UV light.
This CU Byway X column is struggling to stay upright.
And a scene familiar to many towns - a failed concrete column cut off at the shoulder and wrapped in electrical warning tape.
This is one of the latest P111s to appear in Frinton, but it doesn't look like it will last very long. Perhaps the replacement Phosco P567 is already on order.
And this P111, also recently installed, has gone topless!
To close this post, here are how some of the night scenes in my last post look in daylight:
A mile of mercury. Here is The Esplanade, the road that runs along Frinton sea front, photographed in December 1997. Despite Essex County Council moving away from MBF/U in the 1970s, there are no non-MBF/U casual replacements to be seen here.
March 2016 - The Esplanade between the Crescent Gardens and the other end of the town. Once the far corner is turned, you are in Walton-on-the-Naze.
The change from MBF/U to SON has gathered momentum in the last year or so, and the gentle night-time appearance of the last mercury-lit town that I know of in Essex is changing significantly. This stretch of Hadleigh Road on the left escapes for now, but the top end of The Crescent on the right has been changed over to SON.
This corner in The Crescent has escaped the new lighting for now and is still bathed in gentle mercury light.
Many other roads, for example Old Parsonage Way above, have fared less well. A further erosion of once-high standards is also evident here - Phosco P567s are being used to replace P111s.
Thankfully there are still some unspoilt pockets of mercury left in Frinton to enjoy for a little while longer, e.g. Hadleigh Road as viewed in the opposite direction of the tenth image in this post. There are no inconsistent mounting heights here!
Another part of Hadleigh Road that is still enjoying the gentle glow of mercury lighting for the time being. Sadly such installations are on borrowed time.
And this fantastic new faux-Art deco building on The Esplanade - which pays homage to Frinton's 1930s Art deco houses - will look a little less fantastic when it is illuminated by a SON casual replacement on the street outside!