Raynes Park and the Mysterious Electrical Item

If proof were needed that driving around is no way to see your neighbourhood, this particular item is as good an example as any. It's located at a hectic cross-roads just before the busy A3 and I must have driven passed it hundreds of times over the years. It was only when I went past on foot the other week though that I actually noticed and then when I did see it I was left wondering how on earth I never saw it before! To be fair though, it is set back from the kerb, painted green and sited against a backdrop of trees and bushes which is probably how it's managed to survive so long...

The question is of course, what is it?  With all the 'classic' mouldings around the base, it  looks as though it's an old lampost but the fact that there's a door at the front at it's base would suggest  that it was always intended to have a more significant role. The two boxes on the side also suggest that the whole contraption was  a bit on the 'Heath Robinson' side, with sections being added as required.

Discounting the possibility of being a lampost, what else might it have been? I did wonder if it might have been a traffic light of some sort but it's distance from the road makes that unlikely. Could it have been the control box for early sets of traffic lights though? An early  switchboard box maybe?

I haven't really got much of a clue about this one so I took a number of photos in the hope that someone might be able to help out.

 Side view - showing distance from the road

There's a large box of tricks next to our post. Could it be it's modern equivalent or is it something unrelated like a telephone exchange?

Acme Lighting & Engineering Co.

Waverley Road, St Albans

I was hoping that this would provide some information but I've not been able to find out much about this company at all. There have been a number of mainly engineering companies under the Acme name in Waverley Road but the lighting branch has been a bit elusive to date.

The remains of the old heavy duty wires are clearly visible as is the wooden backing board, along with a bit of rust and a few cobwebs.

Presumably there was originally a door on the front of this section which covered up the vertical pipe coming up from under the pavement

A closer look reveals some three-core cable and the remains of some insulation. Possibly a fuseboard of some sort?

Pipes going in, coming out, going to boxes, going down pipes and all the time looking like an old-school cyberman's head from the BBC

The views below take in the larger of the two side boxes. Again not much to see and one of the hinges has been broken

And finally at the top of the post there's what looks like a cap. Originally painted white it has three side screws - presumably to hold it in place - and a final screw on the top. Was it always on the top or was it put on when (presumably) the top assembly was removed?

I'll be dropping some emails to other specialist sites to see if they can identify this but if you've any ideas please feel free to leave a comment.