Lamp Posts (1)

Call me tragic. I've started realising just how fab our lamp posts are. Well - some of them, anyway. The ones that come from another time, when they weren't just there to perform an illuminatory function, but to be decorative as well. I was wandering through the ORNC yesterday and it suddenly hit me, the sheer variety of the things. Some stand sentinel at entrances, others are simple columns with traditional Victorian-looking lanterns on top. Presumably most of them used to be gas lamps.

There are giant versions, just outside the Painted Hall and the Chapel, with massive bulbs inside them, and tiny curly iron ones that, despite their ornate styling, we walk past and hardly notice - like this sweet little lamp round the back, near the porter's lodge in the car park.

There are those that light the two little fountains in the green bit just outside King Charles Block (the bit that used to be parade-ground) and discreet varieties lighting the inner courtyards, just dim enough to be frankly rather creepy at night.

And fab streetlights aren't just found at the ORNC. Those lamps up Greenwich Church Street are fantastic - especially if you look at them from St Alfege's churchyard, through the tree branches. Or in Gloucester Circus (they have curious little copper bits around them) - no wonder the place (or half of it, anyway) keeps being used in films. Or round by the gates to the park.

In fact, gates are a fantastic place to see good lamps. Here's a rather fuzzy set I snapped in the fog last year, that lead to the Queen's House. I did get a pic where there wasn't a car going past, but I rather like the red lines in this one.

I'm highly intrigued by the gates that lead into the grounds of Devonport House - they have what looks suspiciously like old braziers in them. Surely not..?

No, you're probably right - I'm just getting overexcited again. But you can't beat a good brazier. Maybe I should start a Braziers For All campaign. The local herberts would love it...

I think I shall start an occasional series on street furniture. Contributions always gratefully accepted...

Regeneration - Pah...

The Phantom's cross today. What is this picture of? You might well ask...

This is part of what was formerly one of those "tart up a neglected area" projects, on the corner of Eastney Street and Trafalgar Road. Where the bus stop is.

A fair few quid were spent making this look a bit nicer - to add a little touch of smartness and pzazz to a sad little corner. They put in a few shrubs, a shapely seat or three and a bit of paving there, all tied in together with some slightly random concrete bobbles and a row of little blue lights in the ground.

Nothing special - but it added a glow - the feeling that someone gave a damn about it - that it wasn't forgotten. That once 'main' Greenwich ended, somewhere around the car park between the ORNC and Trafalgar Road, things were still somehow cared for.

I used to love those little lights - a small blue glow that made me smile. I'm a simple kind of Phantom, with simple pleasures.

Then they stopped working. I emailed Mary Mills and, I'll give credit where credit's due, after a painful few months of her nagging, the council finally fixed them and they worked for a few short weeks.

Then they stopped again. This time, it would seem, even the mighty Mary Mills wasn't enough to stop the council just filling it in with dollops of concrete.

IT'S NOT EVEN DONE NEATLY FOR CHRISSAKE.

These bloomin' lights can be bought for home installation for a few quid in B&Q and put in by a home handyman. All across the country gardens are full of 'em. Walk through the Peninusla park and they're working (though on another note, the water fountains aren't...) At the Dome itself they've got little coloured strips in their concrete paths. How hard can it be to maintain half a dozen little lamps at a bus stop in East Greenwich? Too hard for Greenwich Council's maintenance team, it would seem.

When will they learn that it's the little things that create pride in a community? The little things that say "This bit's cared for - respect it, ok?"

It's all very well ploughing money into Projects, with a capitol P - and East Greenwich seems to get all kinds of art/gloss paint-jobs/new design 'projects' aimed at it. But without some kind of integral covenant, created at the time of commission, to maintain these innovations once they're installed, it can actually make an area worse. It can create a Marvin the Paranoid Pavement of a once proud project. It can make an area say "I was cared for once by someone. For a little while. And now they've moved on. Forget me. I don't matter."

Here's what the filled-in lights look like now - a row of little urban cowpats, surrounded by an ever-encroaching selection of brambles and bindweed to remind us how low East Greenwich comes in the pecking order.

Ok. It's a few lights. I'll pull myself together and get a life now.