Summary
A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910, with an upright Rochester lantern manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited, probably around 1930.
Reasons for Designation
The lamp post outside the Strand Palace Hotel is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest:
* as a good example of an historic lamp column with a later, improved lantern, illustrating 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 interwar Upright Rochester lantern, one of the most popular and enduring designs of inverted, 'shadowless' lamps of the C20.
Group value:
* with the nearby sequence of historic lamp posts on Tavistock Street and with 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.
Exeter Street was laid out in the late C17 on ground belonging partly to the Cecil family and partly on Bedford Estate lands granted away in 1617. The west end of the present street was initially blocked off, but subsequently extended by 1708 with a westward extension known as (Great) Denmark Court, linked to the Strand by a narrow passage called Little Denmark Court. Around 1831 this passage was widened to full street width to connect the Strand and the western end of Denmark Court, which then became known as Exeter Street.
The lamp post opposite the Strand Palace Hotel on Exeter 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 William Sugg and Company, probably around 1930 to replace an earlier, outdated lantern. Rochester lanterns were the 'storm-proof' version of 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.
Founded in Westminster in 1837, the 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.
Details
A gas street light comprising a column dated 1910, with an upright Rochester lantern manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited, probably around 1930.
MATERIALS: cast iron lamp post, 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 and the manfacturer's name: SUGG. 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 the horizontal enamelled steel reflector to provide the gas supply to the burner. These arms retain their original decorative ironwork scrolls, which were typical of interwar Rochester lanterns.
