Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place

Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place, London, WC2N 4HG

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

A gas street light comprising a 1910 Eddystone column and a Grosvenor lantern of unknown date. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1487044
Date first listed:: 29-Feb-2024
List Entry Name:: Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place
Statutory Address:: Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place, London, WC2N 4HG

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1487044
Date first listed:: 29-Feb-2024
List Entry Name:: Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place
Statutory Address 1:: Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place, London, WC2N 4HG

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place, London, WC2N 4HG

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: City of Westminster (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ3024580704

Summary

A gas street light comprising a 1910 Eddystone column and a Grosvenor lantern of unknown date.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as one of a number of lamp posts originally installed around Covent Garden in 1910 to mark the beginning of George V's reign.

Architectural interest:

* for the well-crafted, decorative column in cast iron, which is a good example of early C20 street furniture; * for the quality and design of the Grosvenor lantern, a popular design of gas lantern often used in locations where something of superior aesthetic quality was required.

Group value:

* as part of an adjacent set of historic lamp posts on Chandos Place and a wider group across other key streets within the Covent Garden area.

History

Gas street lighting first appeared in London in June 1807 when Frederick Albert Winsor gave a public demonstration of gas lights in Pall Mall. The expansion of the railways coinciding with the development of urban gas works in the 1840s facilitated the proliferation of cast iron lamp posts with open-flame gas burners across the capital in the mid-C19. This feature of industrialisation was seen to contribute to London’s international standing and also facilitated the development of modern urban living, increasingly unconstrained by daylight hours.

Electric street lighting was introduced from the 1880s and the gas industry responded by making technological improvements to gas lights, principally the incandescent gas mantle in 1896. This significantly increased the efficacy of gas light, but it was not until the introduction of the inverted gas mantle in 1905 that gas street lights were really able to match the efficiency and brightness of the rival electric carbon filament lamps. In the 1920s and 1930s, many gas lamp posts in Westminster were upgraded with new lanterns fitted with inverted mantles. Gas remained an important source of power for street lighting as late as the mid-C20, and smaller numbers of lamps have continued to run on gas into the early C21.

Chandos Place (known as Chandos Street until 1937) takes its name from the fourth Earl of Bedford's father-in-law, the third Lord Chandos. It was developed from the 1630s but most of the present buildings date from the second half of the C19.

The lamp post outside 66 Chandos Place was probably installed as part of a planned lighting scheme in 1910 to mark the beginning of King George V's reign. The Grosvenor-type lantern is unlikely to be the original lantern but the date of its installation is unknown.

Details

A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910 with a Grosvenor-type lantern, date unknown.

MATERIALS: cast iron lamp post with a glazed, metal lantern. The decorative 'fret' around the top of the lantern is probably cast lead.

DESCRIPTION: the lamp post consists of a tapering, fluted, column, identified as model number 1275 in the William Sugg catalogue and known as the 'Eddystone', topped with a Grosvenor lantern. The base of the column has the Westminster City Council crest embossed on one side and on the other, the royal cypher G V R and a date of 1910. An oval plaque to the lower part of the base bears an illegible serial number. The lantern is circular, with tapered and curved glazing panels with metal glazing bars, topped with a decorative, perforated fret and an ogee finial to the tent. Inside there is a four-mantle inverted burner with a battery-operated time clock and an aluminium reflector. The lantern is mounted on a three-legged frog attached to the collar of the column.

Sources

Books and journals
Pollard, N E, 'A Short History of Public Lighting in the City of Westminster' in IPLE Lighting Journal, (March 1984), 53-58
Websites
Survey of London: Volume 36, Covent Garden: Bedford Street and Chandos Place Area, accessed 16 June 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol36/pp263-265

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.