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Summary

Grade II listed stone column with lamp, once in the Broadway, but moved in 1888 to the eastern end of Speen Lane

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1393068: OBELISK, SPEEN LANE

Monument Type(s):

• GAS LAMP (19th century - 1828 AD to 1828 AD)

Full Description

The so called Speen obelisk is in fact a stone column with a light on top; it was originally erected in 1828 in the Broadway, Speenhamland, and was used as the base of the first gas lamp in Newbury. The Bath stone is believed to have come from a quarry owned by a local resident Frederick Page, being transported to Newbury along the Kennet and Avon Canal. The location of the lamp was in an area suggested to have once been the site of a wayside chapel, and was on a coaching route between London and Bath.

The lamp was moved to the junction of the eastern end of Speen Lane and the Bath Road in 1888, in order to make way for a new Jubilee clock in Speenhamland <1>. The lamp was restored to working order in December 2000 as part of a Speen millennium project <5>.

The structure was listed in 2007 as an unusual and early form of gas light standard and public lighting <6>.

There may have been some past confusion about the lamp being regarded as a commemorative monument: Murray's Guide <7> describes "an eighteenth century monument to the second Battle of Newbury" on the Bath Road ascending westwards from Newbury to a wooded hilltop, possibly referring to the stone column. Pevsner appears to offer a correction to this by noting,"Monument at the corner of the A-road and the street to the church. A truncated column and a metal ball. This is said to have nothing to do with the Battle of Newbury and to have been a lamp post." <8>

The West Berkshire Museum has a photograph showing the obelisk topped with a finial which was subsequently removed <11>.

A history of Newbury's gasworks suggests that Newbury and Speenhamland first had gas street lighting on 29/12/1825 <12> although this would imply that the Speenhamland lamp was not the first device used.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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