Lamp post outside Jubilee Market Hall, 20 Southampton Street

Summary

A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910, with a replacement Upright Rochester lantern manufactured by Sugg Lighting Limitied, and installed around 1980.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp post on Southampton Street outside the entrance to Jubilee Market Hall, a gas street light comprising a 1910 column with replacement Upright Rochester lantern installed around 1980, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as a good example of an historic lamp column with the latest improved lantern, illustrating the final stage of the evolution of gas lighting technology in the C20;
* 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 design of the 1980 Upright Rochester lantern, the final C20 evolution of the enduring, inverted and 'shadowless' gas lamp, designed by William Sugg and Company Limited and updated by Sugg Lighting Limited.

Group value:

* with nearby sets of listed lamp posts on Henrietta Street, King Street and Tavistock Street 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 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 streetlights were 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, ‘shadowless’ 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.

Southampton Street was named after Sir Thomas Wriothesley, fourth Earl of Southampton (1607-1667). It was laid out between 1706 and 1710 under building leases from the second Duke of Bedford. Two of the earliest houses from this period survive: numbers 26 (National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1236370; Grade II) and 27 (NHLE entry 1236371; Grade II*), although both had been re-fronted by the early C20. Incidentally, the London Gaslight Company occupied 26 Southampton Street 1847-1886. This small company was absorbed into the London Gas Light and Coke Company in 1883.

The lamp post outside Jubilee Market Hall on Southampton Street was probably installed as part of a planned lighting scheme in 1910 to mark the beginning of King George V's reign. The Upright Rochester lantern, cradle and clock box were supplied by Sugg Lighting Limited, probably around 1980 to replace a broken unit. Rochester lanterns were the 'storm-proof' version of a series of lanterns introduced from the early C20 and went on to become one of the most popular designs of shadowless lanterns. William Sugg and Company sold large numbers for use in street lighting, railway stations and goods yards. Many gas lamp posts around Covent Garden were renewed with updated Rochester lanterns around 1980 produced by Sugg Lighting.

Founded in Westminster in 1837, William Sugg and Company became an important supplier of interior and exterior gas lighting and received important commissions such as lighting the exterior of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle in 1901. After initially operating from Marsham Street, for most of its lifetime the company was based at Vincent Works, Regency Street and Ranelagh Works, Chapter Street. Lighting manufacture was paused during the First World War while the company produced munitions, but post-war work picked up with the production of conversion sets for pre-war street lanterns, many of which still had upright mantles and required updating to more efficient inverted mantles. The company was acquired by Thorn Electrical Industries Limited in 1968, but in 1973 a new incarnation of the company called Sugg Lighting Limited was formed and continued to produce specialist gas lighting fixtures based on historic models.

Details

A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910, with a replacement Upright Rochester lantern manufactured by Sugg Lighting Limitied, and installed around 1980.

MATERIALS: cast iron column, with a glazed lantern of iron, spun copper and enamelled steel.

DESCRIPTION: the lamp post consists of a tapering, fluted column, identified as model 1275 in the William Sugg catalogue and known as the 'Eddystone', with an Upright Rochester lantern. The base of the column has the Westminster City Council crest embossed on one side. On the other side is the royal monogram G V R and a date of 1910. The lantern has a circular, weatherproof chimney above an inverted, six-mantle burner in a teardrop-shaped glass enclosure with a drainage hole to its base. The main body is supported on a pair of upright arms, which project at right-angles from the cast iron control clock box and pass through the horizontal enamelled steel reflector to provide the gas supply to the burner.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 24 June 2024 to amend details in the description

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, 'Southampton Street and Tavistock Street Area', accessed 2 November 2023 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol36/pp207-218

Other
'One Hundred Years' a brochure produced to commemorate the centenary of William Sugg & Company (1937) accessed 2 November 2023 from https://williamsugghistory.co.uk/

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.