Vintage Electrical

Industrial Lighting in Solid Brass and Copper. Made in Norfolk.

Vintage Electrical operates from a workshop in Norfolk on the underlying premise that the objects you put in your home should make time spent there more memorable — what the brand themselves describes as a love affair with living well. Working from that premise, they have been making lighting in solid brass and solid copper for years now, on the basis that most contemporary lighting is either too thin, too plastic, too cold-feeling, or some combination of the three. The signature pieces are the Cawston pendants — slotted lampshades in copper, brass, pewter, and rusted steel, the kind of thing that throws long shadows on a wall in a way an LED panel categorically cannot — and a quietly serious sub-range of cast metal light switches in the Crabtree style, which is the bit most lighting brands forget about and which Vintage Electrical have correctly identified as the smallest object in any room that you actually touch every day. The light switches alone are worth the visit.

Alongside the new pieces, the brand sources and restores reclaimed vintage lighting — Hungarian railway pendants among other oddities — and runs a sideways product range of considered things for the home: champagne crates and ice buckets, leather and mango wood bar stools, the kind of objects that look as if they have been picked up over time rather than ordered together. Everything dispatches from Norfolk with next-day UK delivery and ships internationally, which for handmade solid-metal lighting is rather faster than the category usually manages. The whole proposition is the underrated case for the visible fitting: that the lamp, the cord that holds it, and the switch that turns it on are all objects you live with rather than infrastructure to be hidden, and choosing them well is a small but compounding pleasure.

For more pieces with character, browse our Home Decor collection or our Home Furnishings edit. Discover home-grown design through our British Makers selection, find more independent brands by Location, and explore the wider brands directory.