If you want to find the most unusual supermarket lighting in Hertfordshire, then it's not worth visiting any supermarkets!
Instead, a look at the supermarket head offices and distribution centres is likely to be far more fruitful. For example, take a look at Tesco's Head Office in Delamere Road, Cheshunt (if you want the full address, look at any Tesco receipt or Tesco own-label box or jar of food!). The Head Office still has around eight five-metre Concrete Utilities hockeysticks with 55w Thorn Alpha Ones on them. Here is what they look like in Google Street View (
view one and
view two), and as I work for the company myself, it would be silly of me not to have my own close-up photograph of one of these 55w Alpha Ones...
This photograph taken in September 2008.
The columns and Alpha Ones are likely to have been installed when the Head Office was opened in 1980.
And just up the A10 from Cheshunt
(and passing these magnificent GR200s on the way), the Sainsbury's distribution depot in Buntingford has a complete installation of almost a dozen very rare lanterns. Can anyone guess what they are from this
Google Street View scene?In case anyone answered deep-bowled Atlas/Thorn Alpha Five, they are in fact the Phosco P160! Here's a close-up...
This photograph taken in October 2008.
Lit at night, it looks like some of these Phosco P160s have been converted to 90w SOX lanterns (while others run 135w SOX and some others are partially burnt out), suggesting some of the original leak transformers for the 140w SLI lanterns are still in use to this day.