The Legacy Hot lava

from Absolutely London South West March 2023

PROPERTY

The story of the iconic lava lamp

Love it or hate it, the lava lamp is an enduring icon of British manufacture. First launched in 1963 by Edward Craven Walker, the lava lamp, with its mesmerising molten swirl, has been in continuous production ever since and is widely recognised as a 20century design classic.

Craven Walker was a great British inventor, entrepreneur and eccentric. Aside from inventing the lava lamp and various other patented inventions he also made underwater naturist ﬁlms, owned helicopters and ﬁre engines, was a World War Two pilot and owned a naturist camp in Dorset.

He developed the lava lamp from an invention for an egg timer he saw in a Dorset pub. When the Astro came to market in 1963, Craven Walker and his wife travelled the country selling the lamps from the back of an ex-postal van known as Smokey. He said:

“If you buy my lamp, you won’t need drugs... I think it will always be popular. It’s like the cycle of life. It grows, breaks up, falls down and then starts all over again”. The lamp was an instant hit, becoming a deﬁning product of the swinging ‘60s appearing in cult TV series The Prisoner and Dr Who. In 1964 the Astro lamp was taken on by Selfridges and Habitat and was soon followed by the Astro Mini.

In 1968 Lava lamps appeared on stage with Paul McCartney’s band, Wings. Linda McCartney loved them and likened them to “a pet goldﬁsh that never dies”. David Bowie was photographed with an Astro Mini lava lamp in his recording studio in 1971. A bespoke lava lamp was designed for the hotel suite scene in Superman II in 1980.

Lava lamps fell out of fashion in the 1980s until the Craven Walkers teamed up with young entrepreneurs, Cressida Granger and David Mulley. Cressida had realised the lamps’ potential after selling them on her stall in Camden Market, where Marc Almond was a regular buyer. They launched the lava lamp to a new generation, changing the company name from Crestworth to Mathmos in 1992, taking the word Mathmos from 1960s cult ﬁlm Barbarella mathmos.com

Millions of lava lamps have been sold throughout the world. New innovations include a range of candle-powered lava lamps as well as wall-mounted and giant lava lamps. The factory is still based in Poole, Dorset and to this day the wax formula remains a strict trade secret.