Estate Lighting

Residential Estates

Primary residential estate roads were lit with side-entry globe lanterns on brown square columns with circular side arms, while smaller estate roads used column-top globes on square columns. The use of square columns and globe lanterns began around 1975, before which early estates like Fullers Slade and Stantonbury had used the small wide-base ‘hockey stick’ columns found in other towns. Once established, square columns and globes became the norm for Milton Keynes residential estates until the early 2000s, when cost cutbacks led to a return to circular columns and standard off-the-shelf street lanterns.

Four principal designs of side-entry globe were used on main estate roads between the 1970s and 2000s:

Secondary residential roads featured column-top globe lanterns, again on brown square columns. Some examples of models used are shown below:

The last globes and square columns were installed in 2010 (with the exception of one side-entry globe installation at the new Sainsburys development in Shenley Church End). Since then many globes and square columns have been lost to replacement projects, especially since the advent of LED lighting.

Industrial Estates

A lower-height version of the grid road column was used for industrial estates. Sometimes these were in the same grey colour as the grid road lighting, whilst brown or even blue columns were used elsewhere. Low pressure sodium lanterns were the norm originally, with high pressure following later. This style of lighting was also used for some non-grid major roads, including sections of the original Brickhill Road and roads around Bletchley.

Some later industrial estates like Shenley Wood and Shelshall West used the same side-entry globes on square columns as the residential estates.

Redways

Original redways were lit with the same column-top globes as minor estate roads, but in the 1980s the decision was taken to use side-entry lanterns with an attachment added to the column top to support these. Various lantern designs, most notably the Davis Starline, were used up until the mid 2000s, when column-stop stainless steel came into use. Following the move back away from stainless steel in the mid 2010s the more common ‘hockey stick’ wide-base column found in most towns has been used.