I have Andy Robertson to thank for this street lamp post, which I have added to the collection of Street Furniture.
Now, it is a catch all collection and includes anything which was or still is plumped down on a street, from lamp posts to coal holes, street grids and all manner of electrical boxes.
This one is from Salford, and carries the name of B H Bootle. Sadly, a search has yet to reveal anything about the foundry. I had high hopes that there would be a reference in Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, but someone will know something of the firm.*
I suspect that these lampposts are an endangered bit of street furniture.
Most will have vanished during the street clearances of the 1950s and 1960s, while others were replaced by taller and brighter lamps.
Those of us who were born in the first half of the last century will remember them well, and just maybe will have memories of when some were still lit by gas.
All of which is confirmed by a small story in the Manchester Guardian which reported on February 22nd, 1966, that the “City’s last gas lamp” was taken down. In a ceremony, attended by “50 people , including civic chiefs, gas officials, residents and cameramen, who crowded the top of Aden Street, Ardwick, yesterday to say farewell to the last of Manchester’s one time 21,682 gas lamps."**
And appears as a story on the blog.***
Leaving me just to thank Andy for sending the pictures over and setting down the challenge for pictures of other old fashioned street lamps, before they all go to either scrap heaps or to adorn the gardens up and down the country.
Location; Broughton
Pictures; street lamps in Salford, 2021, from the collection of Andy Robertson
*Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Main_Page
**City’s last Gaslamp, Manchester Guardian, February 22nd, 1966
*** Mending the light bulb on Randolph Street in 1962 ..... when gas was king, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/05/mending-light-bulb-on-randolph-street.html
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