Didn't earlier NTE5's also have forms of surge protection which I believe has been discontinued in the more recent models?

In reply to a post by panda:

In reply to a post by rogerh:

If you want a counter-example, my drop wire untiil very recently (when Openreach replaced my 18SWG flat twin drop wire for a compliant FTTP connection wiith associated copper) went into a GPO (sic) junction box with an earth wire which was both connected and not connected to the two signal wires by spark gaps. I was sad to see it bypassed!

Different use of earth in your scenario. Yours was for lightning protection, rather than a shared service. The terminal block in your case would have been far deeper to accommodate the surge protectors, instead of the simple block linked from the OP.
As an aside, lightning protection was discontinued as it was mostly ineffectual. It could help a little with induced surges, but not with strikes. A lightning bolt will traverse thousands of feet through air, so a minimal spark gap was pointless.

Fair enough! I only mentioned it for fun, I wanted to say "connected and not connected".

Yes the original NTE5s had an earth terminal which you could swap out the standard A-B surge protector to one that discharged to earth. I never saw one fitted.

I was able to get back up there this morning and snapped these photos of inside the connector

https://i.imgur.com/FZ7QtKV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/wHZaY8L.jpg

Any thoughts?

I'm not certain, but it looks like the bright green wire from the cream cable might be connected to that old earth wire.

Is that ethernet cable on the right hand side - 8 wires ?
If so, and looking at the amount of insulation strip back on the cream cable wires, I'd say that was probably never a BT engineer who did that.

@ clyde123 The earth wire would have been connected by that green wire to the old party line phone but as they no longer exist it will not be connected to anything at the other end.
Can't tell from the photos which pairs are used for the phone, it all looks rather untidy and the green on the other cable has been crushed by the cover.

Agreed.
Certainly looks like the orange wire is one of of a pair, but uncertain about the other. I "think" it's the blue. But looking at the first photo (Sunday @1144) I initially thought it was the brown wire.

It looks like a section of the cable prior to this connector has been replaced at some point.

This is where it enters the loft from the pole outside and into this newer style connector (I've not looked inside this yet. The black cable you see here is just the tv aerial

https://i.imgur.com/kMYwSKp.jpg

It then runs along this beam and then down into the older connector

https://i.imgur.com/9dHLzEe.jpg

In reply to a post by No_One:

I was able to get back up there this morning and snapped these photos of inside the connector

https://i.imgur.com/FZ7QtKV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/wHZaY8L.jpg

Any thoughts?

In these pictures what cable is going to the master socket? the one going up or the one going down?

The terminals are clean and not corroded. It looks OK, if a little untidy.

Replace the lid. It’s nothing to worry unduly about. Those old bakelite housings are pretty damn solid, certainly more robust than their modern replacements. Maybe the pair being crimped through might be preferable, but you aren’t supposed to touch the cable, so just leave it be.