Lamp post outside 9 Burleigh Street

Summary

A gas street light comprising an early C20 column manufactured by Revo, with an Upright Rochester lantern manufactured by William Sugg and Company Ltd, probably around 1930.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp post outside 9 Burleigh Street 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.

Architectural interest:

* for the design of the interwar Upright Rochester lantern, one of the most popular and enduring designs of inverted, 'shadowless' lamps of the C20;
* for the well-crafted, decorative column in cast iron, which is a good example of early C20 street furniture.

Group value:

* as part of adjacent sets of historic lamp posts in Tavistock Street and Exeter 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 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, ‘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.

The southern part of Burleigh Street linking the Strand and Exeter Street was originally laid out in 1673 by Lord Burghley. In the mid-C19 the street was extended northwards to Tavistock Street and new buildings designed by Charles Gray were constructed on the west side of the road; the corner building comprising 20 Tavistock Street and 11 and 13 Burleigh Street survives from this development.

The lamp post outside 9 Burleigh Street was probably first installed in the early C20. The column was manufactured by Revo, while the Upright Rochester lantern was supplied by William Sugg and Company Limited, probably in the 1930s to replace an earlier, outdated lantern. 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.

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 exteriors 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. Revo was founded in Tipton in 1907 by Frederick Harold Reeves and went on to become a household name for its electrical goods and street lighting.

Details

A gas street light comprising an early C20 column manufactured by Revo with an Upright Rochester lantern manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited, probably installed in the 1930s.

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, similar to the William Sugg model 1275, commonly known in Westminster as the 'Eddystone', with an Upright Rochester lantern. The circular base bears the name and location of the manufacturer: REVO TIPTON. The lantern has a circular, weatherproof chimney above a teardrop-shaped glass enclosure with a drainage hole to its base. This glass enclosure contains a six-mantle burner fed by a Horstmann automatic gas controller located in the cast iorn control box at the junction of a pair of upright arms that pass through the horizontal enamelled steel reflector to support the main body and provide the gas supply to the burner. The arms retain their original decorative ironwork scrolls, which were typical of inter-war Rochester lanterns, although the lower parts of these scrolls have been lost.

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
'One Hundred Years' a brochure produced to commemorate the centenary of William Sugg & Company (1937), accessed 16 June 2023 from https://www.williamsugghistory.co.uk/
Survey of London: Volume 26, Covent Garden, accessed 8 March 2024 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol36/pp223-225
The Annals of Tipton: Revo, accessed 8 March 2024 from http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Tipton/Revo.htm

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.