The ‘WASK" – standing for Walter A Slingsby of Keighley was a patent system designed to make maintenance of main road high power gas street lighting easier – using a series of gearing to lower the lantern down, with a hinged and bracketed system of gas supply pipes. It all seems a little ‘OTT’ to modern eyes and indeed, with the growing preference for electrical lighting for main roads, as well as tower wagons to maintain high level lighting, the WISK system despite the advertising was not much seen, certainly in post-WW2 years. This advert lists some of the main users of the system – including Hendon Council on the gas-lit sections of the Hendon by-pass, and Cambridge that seems to have clung on to gas main raod lighting a little longer given the relativelt high number of gearing supplied. Slingsby’s, Keighley based, continued to make pipe fittings for many years and indeed, the company now part of a major US group trade as WASK.

via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/tCdx62