Camden | Glass Lantern Wall Light

A lantern on an outside wall is a piece of architecture as much as a light. This one is a glazed box under a pitched roof, carried on a short arm so it stands clear of the wall, with the bulb visible through the panes and the light spreading through the glass rather than out of a slot. It is a period shape, and it does what period exterior lighting does well: it marks a doorway or a gate with a soft, contained glow instead of the flat glare of a floodlight.

The construction is glass and die-cast aluminium — real glazing in a cast frame, not a moulded lens in a plastic housing — finished in black and rated IP55 against dust and water spray. The lantern stands 26.5 cm tall with an 18.5 cm cover, and the bracket holds it 23.5 cm out from the wall, which is the projection that lets light fall onto a doorstep rather than down the face of the brickwork.

Two versions are made. The wired version takes a permanent mains supply and arrives with an Edison-style filament bulb already included, which is the lamp the shape was drawn around. The solar version carries a monocrystalline panel set into the roof: six hours in decent sunlight gives roughly nine to twelve hours of light, so it runs through a winter evening without a cable anywhere near it. The wired one is for a front door already served by a circuit; the solar one is for a gate post, a boundary wall or the far end of a garden, where running power is not worth the trouble.

• Construction: glass panes in a die-cast aluminium frame
• Size: 26.5 cm tall, 18.5 cm cover, 23.5 cm projection from the wall
• Protection: IP55, rated against dust and water spray
• Wired version: mains connection, Edison-style filament bulb included
• Solar version: monocrystalline roof panel, 6 hours charge for 9 to 12 hours of light
• Setting: front doors, balconies, gate posts, courtyards and garden walls