Lamp post outside 37-38 St James's Place

Summary

A gas street light comprising a Brompton Parish column manufactured by S Pontifex and Company with a later Grosvenor lantern manufactured by William Sugg and Company Limited.

Reasons for Designation

The lamp outside 37-38 St James's Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the well-crafted, decorative column in cast iron, which is a good example of C19 street furniture;
* for the design of the Grosvenor lantern, a popular and enduring style of gas lantern often used in locations where a superior aesthetic was desirable.

Historic interest:

* as a good example of a historic gas lamp post dating from the C19 with an early C20 lantern.

Group value:

* with the Grade II listed group of seven lamp standards on St James's Place (National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1264937).

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.

St James's Place was first built up in the late C17; the earliest houses of 1685-1686 in the east part undertaken by John Rossington and family still stand. The close in which Duke's Hotel (1908) and the lamp post stand was previously called Cleveland Court.

It is not known when the lamp post outside 37-38 St James's Place was installed, but it has a 'Brompton' style column, which are generally understood to date from the late C19 to early C20. The column was manufactured by S Pontifex and Company of Regnart Buildings, Euston Road. This manufacturer appears in trade directories from the late C19 and early C20 as a gasfitter. The Grosvenor lantern appears to be a pre-Second World War model and was probably installed around 1930 to replace an earlier, outdated lantern. According to historic Sugg catalogues, Grosvenor lanterns were often specified for locations where something of superior aesthetic quality to a standard quare lantern was desirable.

Details

A gas lamp post comprising a 'Brompton' style column manufactured by S Pontifex and Company, probably dating from the late C19 or early C20, with a Grosvenor lantern, probably installed around 1930.

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

DESCRIPTION: the lamp post comprises an ornate, cast iron column, of a style which came to be known as 'Brompton' in the 1990s, with a Grosvenor lantern. The column has a tapered shaft of octagonal section, with acanthus leaf decoration over a base of rectangular section and to the collar. The base of the column has been erected higher than usual so that the four slots to the base, usually submerged to provide a route for the gas supply, stand above the pavement in this example. An applied registration plaque to the base gives number 8047 and there is an inscription giving the manufacturer's name: S. PONTIFEX & CO. The column is surmounted by a Grosvenor lantern supported on a four-legged frog. The lantern has tapered and curved glazing panels in copper casing with a decorative fret and an ogee finial to the tent. There is an access hatch in the top of the tent which is usually a good indicator of a pre-Second World War date. Inside the lantern is a four-mantle burner, an enamel reflector 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
Bradley, S, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England London 6: Westminster, (2003), 620-621

End of official list entry

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