3-043-781 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The lighting of the Malvern Monster Beacon, 1856. Illustration of a sketch by Cuthbert Bede. '...it was intended to have been a simple bonfire to commemorate the lighting of Malvern with gas...But the project increased in importance as it became more widely known...The Beacon...towered up like a huge Druid idol. Twelve iron-banded poplar trees...that narrowed to its summit kept together the matériel - 450 faggots, 5 cords of wood, 12 tar-barrels, 2 tons of coals, 3 or 4 loads of hop poles, 2 loads of furze, 2 barrels of tar, and 1 of naphtha...The effect of [the] torchlight procession as it wound up the zigzag path was exceedingly picturesque...by the time that the Beacon was lighted, upwards of 1500 people had assembled on the summit of the hill...At a quarter before seven a blue light was burnt, succeeded by a red light...a magnificent, flight of fifty rockets rushed into the heavens, and burst into a galaxy of falling stars - the signal to distant spectators of the lighting of the Beacon...[In] the hot vicinity of the monster fire...red and orange flames...rushed out longitudinally into wreathed masses of velvety smoke, and drove a fiery rain of sparks far into the darkness...over all, was the deep blue sky studded with silvery stars'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.