A&M Alder & Mackay Limited Nen Grange Works Edinburgh 11

"Their advertisement features two lanterns but I think the important distinction is between the type of frog/chair used, not the number of gas mantles which was varied to suit different locations. (If you have a look at old pictures of Trinity Street and Kings Parade in Cambridge you may be able to see examples - to cope with the needs of a main street as many gas mantles as possible were fitted into a standard lantern).

The particular design of gas lantern shown in the A&M advertisement was not used by Edinburgh Corporation, at least when I lived there. There was more than one lantern type in use in the city, but the differences were very minor and neither had the distinctive plain chimney featured in the advertisement. However it was adopted as standard nearby at North Berwick (East Lothian), with the squared off frog, until the gas lighting there was replaced by fluorescent electrics around 1960-61. Last time I went there I saw a preserved example in the front yard of a building in the town centre, and there may be several more.

I think this kind of lantern also appeared in Fife - which would make sense with the use of Falkland as a name for the other variant. There may have been some used in NW England, as I've seen something similar in the garden of a house in Hest Bank, just north of Lancaster - but there's a lot of expatriate Scots in this part of the world and it may have come with them."

Peter Rivet