Lamp post : Cheltenham

This is one of the most practical, yet also one of the most unusual pieces of street furniture I've ever seen and, despite extensive internet searching, I've neither been able to find records or images of any others like it, nor any information about it, except the bare bones of its description on the British Listed Buildings (BLB) website. The entry reads:

Grade II listed
Lamp post. Late C19. Adapted for electricity. Cast-iron post with wrought-iron enrichment and overthrow, wrought-iron leaves at 3m and 0.75m. Glazed brick plinth. Drum with 4 bracketed buttresses alternating with quadrants.

 

Though the listing makes no mention of the use of the 'glazed brick plinth', my fertile imagination sees a Victorian gentleman or two, each seated on a corner of the plinth, reading their newspapers by the light of the gas lamp and engaging in earnest conversation about the state of the world around them.

 

In my enthusiasm for the ceramics of this amazing piece of street furniture - in particular, the gaping jaws of the ferocious lions, I completely forget to take an image of the whole lamp post but you can see one on the BLB website.