Old cast iron lamp standard, Glenfinlas Street

Image: © Steven Oliver Taken: 13 Apr 2009

A period Mackenzie Bros lighting column which has stood at this location for some eighty years, although the column itself is older, dating from the late 19th century. The column has the remains of a red band on it, which indicates that it originally stood on a cable tram route. It was moved from its original location to the foot of Glenfinlas Street after the cable tram system was electrified in the early 1920s. The column would have had a shorter bracket originally and was fitted with a long-reach one when it was erected here. There were several other similar examples throughout Edinburgh at one time, but this is the sole remaining one. All of the other surviving Mackenzie lighting columns have short brackets. In the 1930s, a slimline version of this column was introduced, using the same design of bracket as seen here. These were installed in new housing estates and on main roads. However, they were later found to be prone to corrosion and the last remaining examples of the slimline columns, a cluster of seventeen in the Hailes streets to the south of Lanark Road, were replaced in 2005 after seventy years' service.

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