Richardson candle

According to the listings, "Cambridge is the last city in the UK to retain its own custom-designed lighting stock from the post-war period". The Richardson candle lamp was designed by Sir Albert Richardson and manufactured by the REVO Electrical Company, based in Tipton, West Midlands. The design was based on the REVO Festival candle lamp, a tall tubular column-mounted lamp designed and installed in Birmingham in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain and which remained in place until the 1990, for example on Colmore Row. After a trial which rejected an off-the-shelf lamp, Richardson was commissioned in 1957, adopting a similar tall and narrow vertical design to echo the perpendicular architectural lines of many historic Gothic Cambridge buildings, but with less decoration than the Festival candle. The vertical tube of the lamp of white translucent perspex is about long and in diameter, surrounding three or four 80 watt fluorescent tubes, with a simple cap and base of cast iron coloured bronze. From the 2010s, fluorescent tubes were replaced with halide bulbs. A bespoke order of 120 new electric streetlamps was manufactured by REVO, installed in Cambridge in the late 1950s to replace pre-war gas lamps. There were 56 wall-mounted lamps, mounted with brackets embossed with the word "REVO", and 64 mounted on slim fluted cast iron columns with bronze colouring. Approximately half of them survive. Three examples were stolen in 2024, but two were recovered by police in January 2025. • Illustration — Lit Richardson candle, on Trumpington Street near St Catharine's College • Illustration — Column-mounted Richardson candle outside Gonville and Caius College, and wall-mounted behind • Illustration — Wall-mounted Richardson candle on Trinity Street • Illustration — Streetlamp on St John's Street, near the Round Church • Illustration — Wall-mounted outside The Eagle on Bene't Street

Richardson candle is classified as a streetlight.