Eleco HW747

For the longest time, this Eleco HW747 stood out as being a very old reminder of a lighting installation long gone. In the 1950's, as the town recovered from the war, a push was made to get the lighting back up to scratch. From photo's, I was able to pick out the original lighting scheme as being these HW747's on various CU concrete columns, and the whole town would have been awash with them at one point. the brackets varied from the ones you see here, to the C shape and even the odd swan neck.

No more than 10 to 15 years later, all the brackets and lanterns were removed, replaced with post top adapters and Phosco P107's. I can only assume this one was missed due to how close it was to the wall of the building. 3 more lighting replacements later, this relic was still hanging on, however by 2015 the building behind it had now become vacant, resulting in its demolition and replacement with new medical centre. Realising this, and the miracle that the lantern survived totally unharmed after the buildings demolition, I had made my move and begun a rescue attempt to get the lantern and bracket into the collection.

2016 comes round, as I decided to take a stroll into the town, taking a route that took me past the lantern, to discover to my shock the whole installation was no more. A few phonecalls later revealed that it had been removed 'as an emergency' hence was totally lost. Thankfully Danny managed to save and 'donate' a HW747 to me, and 2021 was the year I finally got a good bowl for it, as well as a matching bracket for it, meaning I now have another example of my towns history once more.