Great King Street - possibly around the 1950s

© Any reproduction requires prior permission of Edinburgh City Archives
Photo from Edinburgh Street Lighting Collection SL/90/8. Photo Ref. Photo Illustrations Scotland

Great King Street

Street Lighting

This photo comes from the Edinburgh Street Lighting Collection held by Edinburgh City Archive. I don't know the date of the photo, but somebody with a better knowledge of streetlighting than me may be able to estimate the date. The small gas lamps are still in place and larger lamp posts appear to have just been installed, but have not yet had their lanterns fitted.

A note on the back of the photo reads:

LIGHTING DEPARTMENT

GREAT KING STREET - Concrete pillars of dark aggregate and of

slender design approved for erection on bus routes in the New Town

Cars

There seems to have been no problem for motorists finding a parking place when this photo was taken. The style of cars in the photo suggests to me that the photo may have been taken around the 1950s.

Reply

Steven Oliver

Duns, Borders, Scotland

Thank you to Steven Oliver for confirming the date of this photo:

Steven wrote:

Street Lighting

"The photos of Great King Street and Drummond Place would both have been taken in 1956:

Great King Street

Drummond Place

Similar columns were erected nearby, at the same time, in:

- London Street

- Dublin Street.

These are early Concrete Utilities (CU) Highway X columns; these continued to be installed in Edinburgh until around:

- 1989 for complete installations

- 1995 as casual replacements. The lanterns would have been tungsten ones originally. These were replaced, around 1960, by sodium lanterns.

The columns in:

- Great King Street

- London Street

- Drummond Place

were replaced by modern 'designer' installations in the early-1990s, but some of the Dublin Street examples still remain as of early 2011.

Steven added:

"There is a way of dating these columns. I have a feeling it may be too technical for the general readership, but I'll include it for reference:

Lamp Post Dates

Early Concrete Utility Highway X columns had a slim base compartment around where the service door is. From the late-1960s onwards, the base compartment became larger.

From 1983 onwards, all new concrete columns featured a code below the service door. e.g. D22F, where '22F' indicates 'Concrete Utility Highway X columns', The first letter of this code gives the year: D=1983, E=1984, etc. ... P=1995

Steven Oliver, Duns, Borders, Scotland: January 27, 2011