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How can anything so mundane as street lighting be of historical interest
you might ask? It’s something we all take for granted until the light
outside our house goes out. We might then perhaps wonder how villagers
in days gone by managed to get around at night when the only help they
had in negotiating the rough, unmade up roads was the light from the
moon and the glow from candlelit windows. Most people probably did not
venture out after dark but there were no doubt always a few people to be
seen making their way home from the pubs and alehouses, sometimes taking
a tumble, either because of the rutted roads or too much alcohol, or
both!
There must be very few
villages which have had their own street lighting for nearly three
hundred years, as Nayland has, and even today there are many villages
which still do not have any public lighting at all. Nayland has always
been a progressive village and no doubt because of its prosperous and
industrial past has been fortunate in having, amongst other things, its
own street lighting.
Originally the street lamps
were powered by oil, then gas and finally electricity. Records show that
it was the Feoffees, the charity trustees, who back in 1752 provided
£12. 14s. 1d. from Nayland charity money for lamps and oil for the
“Town” and further amounts in subsequent years for oil and for paying a
man to light the lamps. So, we have to thank Nayland’s benefactors from
the days of the cloth making industry for providing the original lamps.
Gas came to Nayland in the
mid nineteenth century, firstly to the silk-throwsting mill in Fen
Street, the gas being used for lighting to allow for longer working
hours. However, it was the owners of the new gas works which started up
in Newlands Lane in 1866 who replaced the oil street lamps with gas
lamps. The Lighting & Watching Act of 1833 had been in force in Nayland
since 1867 but in 1898 the powers and duties of the Lighting Inspectors
were transferred to the recently created Parish Council. Council minutes
record that a letter was sent to the proprietor of the gas works asking
him to continue to light the village lamps; it was hoped he would not
tender at a rate exceeding his charge the previous year “as increased
costs would possibly provoke an endeavour to do away with the lighting
altogether”! Fortunately this did not happen.
The switch over to electricity came about in 1924 through Nayland’s own
entrepreneur, Mr William Hindes, a village grocer and former owner of
the gas works. He saw the power of the water running through the old
mill and established the Nayland Electric Light and Power Company. He
agreed to light the 20 street lamps which Nayland had that time for £2
per lamp per annum, from one hour after sunset until 10.30 during 8
months of the year, exemption to be given for those evenings which the
Parish Council may consider to be moonlit evenings. A small amount of
electricity was also supplied by the mill to residents’ homes and this
private enterprise continued until 1938 when the East Anglian Electric
Light Company took over.
With the development of the
village in the twentieth century many more street lights have been
installed. The original lights provided by the Feoffees in the old part
of the village, however, are probably still in the same positions. Next
time one of these lights go out spare a thought for the inhabitants of
Nayland in centuries gone by as they made their way home in the dark and
remember how fortunate the village has been in having its own gas works
and electricity company, as well as a group of such forward thinking
people as the Nayland Feoffees. Perhaps we should also spare a thought
for Wiston residents who, though part of the parish and therefore
contribute through their council tax to all its amenities, do not have
their own streetlights! |
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