Lamp Post
The street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard or lamp standard, is a raised source of light on the edge of a road, turned on or lit at a certain time every night. The modern lamps may also have light-sensitive photocells to turn them on at dusk and off at dawn, or activate automatically in dark weather. It is not uncommon for street lights to be on posts which have wires strung between them, such as on telephone poles or utility poles.
The history of lamp posts in the United States before incandescent lamps, gas lighting was employed. The earliest lamps required that a lamplighter to tour the town at dusk, lighting each of the lamps, but later designs employed ignition devices that would automatically strike the flame when the gas supply was activated.
Lamp posts were initially conceived for streets but are increasingly found in gardens. The reasons for this are a lamp in a high position illuminates a larger area than a low level light and as people become richer and can afford to light for outdoor as well as indoor use. Many people do have drives in gardens, which benefit from lanterns on posts, antique lamp posts, and reproductions of antique lamp posts have become available. People see a garden is a the obvious place for Victorian style lighting and a vast number of modern designs for lanterns and posts is available, but their associations are with public streets and so one rarely sees them in gardens. The lamp posts currently used in gardens tend to be antique lamp posts and lanterns specially design garden lights, usually on medium-to-high posts.
Usually the lamp posts are made out of Cast iron and it is also the choice for ornamental lamp posts. Cast iron lamp posts have been around since the early 19th century and in those days transportation of this extremely heavy material was quite difficult so most towns used local manufacturers to produce their lamp posts and due to local influence, styles unique to these small towns and cities were developed. Many of the cast iron products reflect these unique styles and are accurate in scale and design.
Cast iron is very sturdy due to its high strength and weight. Be it in gardens or streets Cast Iron Lamp Post/ Poles are very widely used.
Over the years myths have developed about cast iron lamp posts, some said that that cast iron posts will rust away to nothing. On the contrary, cast iron if not properly finished will only rust on the surface. The surface rust actually becomes a protective coating that prevents the corrosion process from continuing further.