Lamp post outside 28 Bedfordbury

Summary

A gas street light comprising an Eddystone type column dated 1910, with an early C20 Grosvenor lantern.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp post outside 28 Bedfordbury is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as a good example of an historic lamp post from the early 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 Grosvenor lantern, a popular and enduring style of lantern often selected for locations where a lantern of superior aesthetic quality was desirable.

Group value:

* with the group of three lampstandards on New Row and as part of a wider group of historic gas lamps 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.

Bedfordbury was the name given to the area of small, narrow streets bounded by St Martin's Lane to the west and Bedford Street to the east, and was first developed around 1635. Most of the early buildings have been cleared and redeveloped in the C19 and C20, although at the northern junction with New Row there are a few historic buildings dating from the late C17 to the early C19.

The lamp post outside 28 Bedfordbury was probably installed as part of a planned lighting scheme in 1910 to mark the beginning of King George V's reign. Two historic photographs held in the London Picture Archive taken from different angles, both dated 1972, each show the lamp post in the same location but with two different lanterns: a Rochester-type lantern, which were installed as upgrades to many 1910 lamp posts in the Covent Garden area around 1930, and a Grosvenor-type lantern which might be the same as the lantern presently in place and appears to be a pre-Second World War model. According to historic Sugg catalogues, Grosvenor lanterns were often specified for locations where something of superior aesthetic quality to a standard square lantern was desirable.

Details

A gas street light comprising an Eddystone type column dated 1910, with an early C20 Grosvenor lantern.

MATERIALS: cast iron lamp post, with a glazed lantern of iron and spun copper.

DESCRIPTION: the lamp post consists of a tapering, fluted column, identified as model 1274 in the 1904 William Sugg catalogue and known as the 'Eddystone', with a Grosvenor lantern. The base of the column has the Westminster City Council crest embossed on one side and the royal cypher G V R and a date of 1910 on the other. The Grosvenor lantern has tapered and curved glazing panels in a copper casing, with a decorative fret and ogee-shaped finial to the tent. There is a top access hatch in the tent, which is a good indicator of a pre-Second World War date. The lantern contains a four-light mantle and a Horstmann 14 day control clock.

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
Old and New London: Volume 3: Covent Garden, accessed 25 June 2024 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol3/pp255-269

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