Ever-growing collection of British siren images

[Eclipse DDS]

I love the tapered stators on the Type 1474s, I'm wondering if that was done to try and direct the sound more out towards the intakes?

Yeah, I love that feature too. I think that the Gent dual-tone sirens are the nicest looking British sirens to be honest. I am curious about the term 'Type 1474', I have never heard that before, I assume you are referring to the Gent but please explain specifically what you meant.
I am not too sure about the reason of the stator's shape, I always just assumed that it was to make the siren look a bit nicer, heh.

That's the name of that particular model. There's a list of Gents model numbers with the corresponding horsepower ratings, and the Type 1474 is 4HP, which means this is a Type 1474.

https://civil-defense-sirens.fandom.com ... er_Tangent

Ah right, thanks
Funnily enough, just before you sent this, I was just looking at the CDS wiki for the first time. I am amazed at the quality of information and writing on there, nice work!

[ArxCyberwolf]

Yeah, I love that feature too. I think that the Gent dual-tone sirens are the nicest looking British sirens to be honest. I am curious about the term 'Type 1474', I have never heard that before, I assume you are referring to the Gent but please explain specifically what you meant.
I am not too sure about the reason of the stator's shape, I always just assumed that it was to make the siren look a bit nicer, heh.

That's the name of that particular model. There's a list of Gents model numbers with the corresponding horsepower ratings, and the Type 1474 is 4HP, which means this is a Type 1474.

https://civil-defense-sirens.fandom.com ... er_Tangent

Ah right, thanks
Funnily enough, just before you sent this, I was just looking at the CDS wiki for the first time. I am amazed at the quality of information and writing on there, nice work!

Thank you!

[Eclipse DDS]

Hello again,

It has been a while since I last posted on this topic, so here is siren #2 I saw on my trip down south.

This siren is located outside of Oldham, near the area of Royton. It is a Carter siren, most likely from the Second World War or Cold War period. Interestingly, the pole it is mounted on is situated at the end of someone's garden, and even at one point had a bird box hung on it according to streetview, however the box has since been removed. I am not sure whether this siren is technically property of the house of which's garden the Carter is in, but I would expect it to still be council property (or something similar along those lines). Whoever owns it, if I were to move to this area this is where I'd want to live!

Anyway, on the subject of the siren itself (and its pole), it appears that the siren itself is in OK condition. Granted it has a lot of green growth upon it, but I think that this may just be cosmetic damage. There doesn't seem to be too much rust on it, only around the connection between it and the pole. Surprisingly, it is still possible to make out (what I think to be) green paint on the motor. As usual with most British sirens, this Carter is equipped with de-icing implements for thawing out the siren for use in cold weather, not an unusual event in Britain. Whilst the de-icing equipment seems to still be connected to something at the bottom of the pole (I cannot make out what due to the hedge, but it MAY be a controller of some kind), I cannot see if the siren is connected to a power source or not. I'm leaning towards not, but the cable that would run down into one is still intact, and it does seem to run into a junction box of some description further down the siren. There is some rust on this however, and it may be that the power has been cut somewhere around the controller (if there even is one).

The pole is of the simple wooden kind, which is common in Britain for telephone wires but relatively uncommon for sirens, with most being roof-mounted or on metal poles (such as the Gent siren in Hale). I think that this could be due to the siren being bought without a metal pole and then fitted onto the top of a pre-existing wooden telephone pole, but I don't know. I am fairly sure that siren manufacturers didn't offer wooden poles with their sirens, instead preferring metal ones, but I don't have any hard evidence to back this up.

Whatever the story of the pole is, it still retains the telephone wire connections it once used for activation (I think, please correct me if I am wrong), and even some of the footpegs are still intact higher up the siren. It seems that this siren was inactivated in a hurry, as whoever cut the telephone wires left some hanging from the pole connection.

Overall, this siren MAY still be in working condition, but I don't think that it will ever be activated for a while.

Thanks for reading, I will get to work on the 3rd siren writeup next week.
Also, I will at some point try to confirm this siren's exact model and location, as on the map is is labelled as a 'potential location':
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... 95707&z=20

Have a good day,
-205664

[Duckster]

Hello again,

It has been a while since I last posted on this topic, so here is siren #2 I saw on my trip down south.

This siren is located outside of Oldham, near the area of Royton. It is a Carter siren, most likely from the Second World War or Cold War period. Interestingly, the pole it is mounted on is situated at the end of someone's garden, and even at one point had a bird box hung on it according to streetview, however the box has since been removed. I am not sure whether this siren is technically property of the house of which's garden the Carter is in, but I would expect it to still be council property (or something similar along those lines). Whoever owns it, if I were to move to this area this is where I'd want to live!

Anyway, on the subject of the siren itself (and its pole), it appears that the siren itself is in OK condition. Granted it has a lot of green growth upon it, but I think that this may just be cosmetic damage. There doesn't seem to be too much rust on it, only around the connection between it and the pole. Surprisingly, it is still possible to make out (what I think to be) green paint on the motor. As usual with most British sirens, this Carter is equipped with de-icing implements for thawing out the siren for use in cold weather, not an unusual event in Britain. Whilst the de-icing equipment seems to still be connected to something at the bottom of the pole (I cannot make out what due to the hedge, but it MAY be a controller of some kind), I cannot see if the siren is connected to a power source or not. I'm leaning towards not, but the cable that would run down into one is still intact, and it does seem to run into a junction box of some description further down the siren. There is some rust on this however, and it may be that the power has been cut somewhere around the controller (if there even is one).

The pole is of the simple wooden kind, which is common in Britain for telephone wires but relatively uncommon for sirens, with most being roof-mounted or on metal poles (such as the Gent siren in Hale). I think that this could be due to the siren being bought without a metal pole and then fitted onto the top of a pre-existing wooden telephone pole, but I don't know. I am fairly sure that siren manufacturers didn't offer wooden poles with their sirens, instead preferring metal ones, but I don't have any hard evidence to back this up.

Whatever the story of the pole is, it still retains the telephone wire connections it once used for activation (I think, please correct me if I am wrong), and even some of the footpegs are still intact higher up the siren. It seems that this siren was inactivated in a hurry, as whoever cut the telephone wires left some hanging from the pole connection.

Overall, this siren MAY still be in working condition, but I don't think that it will ever be activated for a while.

Thanks for reading, I will get to work on the 3rd siren writeup next week.
Also, I will at some point try to confirm this siren's exact model and location, as on the map is is labelled as a 'potential location':
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... 95707&z=20

Have a good day,
-205664

Nice work so far! I’m a british person too, so i can ill find images to add, if i can learn how to add them. Overall, nice job on the photos!

[Eclipse DDS]

Hello again..

Blah, blah blah

Thanks for reading!

Nice work so far! I’m a british person too, so i can ill find images to add, if i can learn how to add them. Overall, nice job on the photos!

Thanks! If you too could add photos that would be greatly appreciated, I live up North so I probably won’t be able to visit too many sirens (except on rare occasions such as my trip South).
Nice duck, by the way
Thanks again for the kind words!

[Eclipse DDS]

Hello again,

Again, it has been a while since I posted siren #2 in this topic, so now it is time for siren #3 of my trip down south.

On one of the days of our trip, we decided to visit the city of York. Obviously, that had me hastily searching for sirens near the city just before we left.
Thanks to Brendan W's UK Siren Map, I was able to locate a Carter located just outside of the city. Upon further research, I discovered that the siren was located atop the Control Tower of the Yorkshire Air Museum, which was a very welcome surprise. I have visited the National Railway Museum before, which is also near York, but I had no idea of the Air Museum's existence until now.

Before we look at the siren, I would just like to briefly talk about the Museum itself.

The Yorkshire Air Museum is the most amazing Air Museum I have ever been to. It has a huge variety of different planes from various eras of RAF history, even including Messerschmitt aircraft. It also boasts the only fully complete Halifax bomber in Europe (or just the UK, I cannot fully remember what the plaque said), which you can actually pay to go inside and experience what it would be like to fly it. As well as planes, the Museum also contains a large amount of vehicles, such as a beautifully restored bus, a 'Tilly' truck (short for utility), and even 2 airport fire engines, one of which was originally in service in New York!

The museum spans over a huge area, on which are two hangars; one containing complete aircraft and the other displaying various exhibits mid-restoration. There are also barrack buildings, which have been repurposed to house yet more exhibits and displays. There is also a NAAFI building, which is still in use as a social space and café. The Control Tower on which the siren is located is located roughly in the centre of the site, featuring a restored vintage Tannoy speaker playing music from the wartime era. This Tower is, at the time of writing, being refurbished, and given the huge task requiring a lot of funds (£200,000 to be exact), the Museum is in need of donations to save this piece of history. If you have ever seen the film 'Back to the Future', you will be familiar with the phrase "save the Control Tower!". Ok, so maybe in the film it doesn't say 'Control' Tower, but you get my point.
If you are interested in contributing to preserve the Control Tower, head over to the Yorkshire Air Museum's site for more information:
https://yorkshireairmuseum.org/explore/ ... our-tower/
By the way, I have not in any way been sponsored by the Yorkshire Air Museum to write this, I am just genuinely wanting to share how amazing this place is. If you ever get a chance to go there, I highly recommend it. Potentially even over the National Railway Museum, but that is just personal preference.

Anyway, now that I have 'briefly' mentioned that, let's get onto the siren itself.

So, as previously mentioned this siren was manufactured by Carter, and it will have served as an air raid and Civil Defence siren back in the day. It is located atop the Control Tower (yet ANOTHER reason to "Save the (Control) Tower"), and is in an OK condition. I assume the peeling paint is simply cosmetic damage, as there appears to be very little rust on the siren itself. I do not know if it is connected to power, but given that the Control Tower has been gutted out for refurbishment, I'd guess that it has been disconnected for now. The siren appears to have traces of pale blue paint clinging onto it, so that is what I assume the original colour was, unless it has faded due to sun exposure (a rare occasion in the UK).

I don't really have much else to say about this siren other than it will most likely be taken down for restoration soon, so that will be interesting.

I spent more time talking about the museum itself than the actual siren... heheh...

Anyway, thanks for reading

-205664

[Eclipse DDS]

Hi again,

Here is the fourth (and final) part of my trip down South.

This part features siren #4 of the trip (or #5 if you include the miniature vehicular siren), which is a Klaxon GP10. This siren is located on Dunhill Rise in Leeds, just next to the intersection of Wyke Beck and the road. The Klaxon is used for flood warnings when the Wyke Beck overflows, and apparently has seen use. The GP10, according to Brendan W's UK Siren Map, was originally a GP12 before being replaced by the GP10 due to it not having de-icing heaters.

It is quite easy to miss this siren if you are not looking for it, as it is situated within a couple of trees that line the riverbank. Below the pole (not captured in the pictures) are a few cabinets, one of which most likely contains the siren controller. The pole itself looks almost like new, but the same cannot be said for the GP10 atop it.

Whilst most of the siren is fine, there is some large rust patches around connections on the de-icing heater. This doesn't seem to be damaging the siren extensively (yet), but it still could easily turn into a major issue, with the siren failing to activate in cold conditions. Whilst the (absolutely HUGE) motor of the siren is relatively unscathed, the junction box attached to it seems to have a lot of messily-applied tape of some kind wrapped around it. I assume that this is to protect the wire connections from the natural elements, but it looks a bit dodgy if you ask me. It also seems that the de-icing element also has some of this tape encasing it around the connections, but as with the junction box, I am not 100% sure why this is here. Maybe this is a standard feature, I don't know, but it sure does look a bit messy.

Overall, this is a pretty clean, solid siren. Despite the patches of damage here and there, I think that as long as the rust problem is kept a close eye on, this siren will endure for a good few years to come.

And that concludes the writeup on my trip down South! I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

But now, I have another issue: I took yet another trip down South....

Fortunately we didn't see as many sirens, so there isn't as much work for me to do (and not as much to read)!

Anyway, I'll see you then.
-205664

[Eclipse DDS]

Hello again,

As I previously mentioned, it seems as if in the time I was gradually releasing the parts of my first trip down South, I ended up going down there again. And you know what I did? Saw more sirens. And do you know what that means? Another two writeups to be written. Yay.

Anyway, let's get into the first of two parts in the 'South Siren Trip Addon Pack'!

First off, I would quickly like to clear up a bit of potential confusion.
When I say 'down South', you may have noticed (or not) that the locations that I visit are, well, not in the South of England. Now, this is because I am speaking relative to my location. Living in the North of England, most of the country is 'down South', so even if I am not leaving the Northern half of England, I am still travelling a considerable distance South. Confused? So am I.

With that out of the way, it's time for the sirens.

The first siren we saw on this trip is located at the Sygenta chemical plant in Huddersfield, which my Grandfather used to work at when it was part of the company 'Zenica'. This company, after merging and becoming 'Astra-Zenica', is commonly known today for its Covid-19 vaccines. This siren is a Whelen WPS-2909, and is part of a system comprising of another two identical sirens. Interestingly, this system originally comprised of 4 ACA Alertronic sirens, which were reportedly first tested in 1985 according to the UK Siren Map by Brendan W. However, in 2017 this system was removed and replaced with the 3 Whelens that stand there today. We could only see one of the 3 Whelens due to the other two being either inaccessible or obscured by trees. However, the Northmost siren in the system is visible from the roadside that runs alongside it. I am fairly sure that this area is publicly accessible, as there were no security gates in place and we also saw a couple of people parking up to walk their dogs.

Location wise, the siren is situated on the plant's grounds but very close to the perimeter wall, which does not have any 'no photography' signs on it as far as we could see. The area is an interesting blend of urban, industrial and natural, with the plant bordering on River Colne. You can actually get relatively close to this siren, as there is a path running alongside the wall, allowing for a variety of different angles (as you can see in the images, we were experimenting with getting the sun to flare around the edges of the siren). The siren appears to be in very good condition, as would be expected from a relatively new installation. It is held relatively high in the air by a large metal girder-style pole, on which a radio (I think) aerial and (presumably) the control box is situated. On a nice day like the one we chose to visit this siren, you can get some really nice photography due to the leaves of the nearby trees and the industrial structures behind and around.

According to the UK Siren Map, this siren tests annually on full volume and regularly on reduced volume. In fact, a day or so before we visited it, the system was reported to have been heard testing in attack/wail by my relatives who live nearby. Given that they live over 800 metres away from the nearest Whelen (which you can actually tell the location from its huge shadow on the ground on Google Maps aerial view) and assuming that this was not the annual, full volume test, this means that even the reduced volume must be pretty loud. Then again, it is a 2909, so what did I expect?

Welp, that fulfils my weekly writeup requirement. I probably will continue doing these on Thursdays, but that is NOT a definite schedule. I'm not that reliable

Bye for now,
-205664

[Kasey]

Hello again,

As I previously mentioned, it seems as if in the time I was gradually releasing the parts of my first trip down South, I ended up going down there again. And you know what I did? Saw more sirens. And do you know what that means? Another two writeups to be written. Yay.

Anyway, let's get into the first of two parts in the 'South Siren Trip Addon Pack'!

First off, I would quickly like to clear up a bit of potential confusion.
When I say 'down South', you may have noticed (or not) that the locations that I visit are, well, not in the South of England. Now, this is because I am speaking relative to my location. Living in the North of England, most of the country is 'down South', so even if I am not leaving the Northern half of England, I am still travelling a considerable distance South. Confused? So am I.

With that out of the way, it's time for the sirens.

The first siren we saw on this trip is located at the Sygenta chemical plant in Huddersfield, which my Grandfather used to work at when it was part of the company 'Zenica'. This company, after merging and becoming 'Astra-Zenica', is commonly known today for its Covid-19 vaccines. This siren is a Whelen WPS-2909, and is part of a system comprising of another two identical sirens. Interestingly, this system originally comprised of 4 ACA Alertronic sirens, which were reportedly first tested in 1985 according to the UK Siren Map by Brendan W. However, in 2017 this system was removed and replaced with the 3 Whelens that stand there today. We could only see one of the 3 Whelens due to the other two being either inaccessible or obscured by trees. However, the Northmost siren in the system is visible from the roadside that runs alongside it. I am fairly sure that this area is publicly accessible, as there were no security gates in place and we also saw a couple of people parking up to walk their dogs.

Location wise, the siren is situated on the plant's grounds but very close to the perimeter wall, which does not have any 'no photography' signs on it as far as we could see. The area is an interesting blend of urban, industrial and natural, with the plant bordering on River Colne. You can actually get relatively close to this siren, as there is a path running alongside the wall, allowing for a variety of different angles (as you can see in the images, we were experimenting with getting the sun to flare around the edges of the siren). The siren appears to be in very good condition, as would be expected from a relatively new installation. It is held relatively high in the air by a large metal girder-style pole, on which a radio (I think) aerial and (presumably) the control box is situated. On a nice day like the one we chose to visit this siren, you can get some really nice photography due to the leaves of the nearby trees and the industrial structures behind and around.

According to the UK Siren Map, this siren tests annually on full volume and regularly on reduced volume. In fact, a day or so before we visited it, the system was reported to have been heard testing in attack/wail by my relatives who live nearby. Given that they live over 800 metres away from the nearest Whelen (which you can actually tell the location from its huge shadow on the ground on Google Maps aerial view) and assuming that this was not the annual, full volume test, this means that even the reduced volume must be pretty loud. Then again, it is a 2909, so what did I expect?

Welp, that fulfils my weekly writeup requirement. I probably will continue doing these on Thursdays, but that is NOT a definite schedule. I'm not that reliable

Bye for now,
-205664

Great photos!

[Eclipse DDS]

Hello again,

Ok, I promise that this is the last southern siren trip instalment... probably...

So, the final siren is a Gent 2HP siren located atop Escafeld House, in the suburbs of Sheffield. When we went on our trip, we were staying very close to this siren's location, and somehow I completely missed it when I was originally scanning the area for sirens to visit... Then, on the final day of our stay when we were preparing to leave, I had a brief check over the UK Siren Map (made by Brendan W) again, and to my surprise I noticed this siren! We visited the siren just before we began our trip back to Cumbria. I would've been kicking myself if I never visited this siren, given how close it was to where we were staying...

Anyway, the siren is, as previously mentioned, a 2HP Gents of Leicester siren situated atop Escafeld House, which from the signs around it, is most likely owned by the South Yorkshire Police and used as an Occupational Health Unit. The siren itself is roof-mounted upon a stone pillar which I assume was a fake chimney at one point. There are a couple of junction boxes attached to this pillar, or at least there WOULD have been. One of them appears to have detached, only being held in place by the wiring that runs in and out of it. The siren itself is in incredibly poor condition, with the metal being cracked, with gaping holes and gaps in the choppers. The stator especially is very damaged, even misaligned in places due to the cracks. Apparently this is a common problem with Gent 2HP sirens, although I am unsure what exactly causes this issue. The motor cover appears to have rust damage, and the junction box that runs into it appears completely decayed, being almost unrecognisable as a box at all. There is a lot of ivy growing upon it too. This siren does have heating equipment, however it appears incredibly damaged. Very little of the original red paint remains.

I have almost complete confidence that this siren would no longer work effectively, if at all. The huge amount of damage to the choppers lead me to believe that in the event it is activated, it would most likely tear itself apart. I am not entirely sure what this siren would have at one point warned of, I assume air raids during World War II but I have no evidence to back this up. The red paint made me initially think that it may have been a fire siren, however its instalment on a Police building counters this argument.

And that (hopefully) should be the final siren!
To be honest, almost anywhere in England is South of Cumbria, so I probably will have to specify which County I am visiting if I do another one of these... I can't just keep doing 'Southern' siren trips...

Anyway, thanks for reading
-205664