The Trust brought together a pioneering lighting partnership with Camden Council, Westminster City Council, English Heritage (now Historic England), Shaftesbury plc and the Mercers’ Company, with assistance from the Corporation of London. After reviewing market offers, a decision was made to design and have manufactured a bespoke façade lantern and bracket. Trustee Paul Draper, a leading architectural artist, designed the Covent Garden Lantern® and bracket and gifted them to the Trust.
The Trust’s Covent Garden Lantern® is now in use from south of Shaftesbury Avenue down to Long Acre including Mercers’ Walk and has reduced both carbon emissions and energy needs. Further refinements arising from advances in LED lamps have been incorporated. The scheme has been extended to include Floral Street, Neal Street, Tower Street and West Street.
The full story of this unusual partnership is on the Trust’s website.
The Covent Garden Lantern® should continue as the norm for the area and where possible be used elsewhere in Covent Garden and beyond.
Paul Draper surveyed nearby 18th century Windsor style lanterns, achieving the final Covent Garden Lantern® after various prototypes and at a fraction of usual R&D costs.
Lighting engineers from Camden, Westminster and the Corporation of London listed every fault they had ever encountered so these could be designed out, creating a long-life, sustainable product.
The Covent Garden Lantern® combines current technology with ‘sugar bowl’ diffraction which greatly reduces glare, carbon emissions and energy requirements and also recreates an authentic Victorian ‘Windsor’ style, elegant in the day and effective at night. The façade-mounted lanterns create the egg-shaped pool of light which best lights both footways and carriageways.
