Half Lantern Wall Lights

What a half lantern actually is

A half lantern is exactly what the name says. Take a traditional four or six sided lantern, cut it down the middle, and fix the flat face to the wall. You keep the shape, the glazing bars and the cap, and you lose about half the projection. That matters more than it sounds. A full wall lantern on a bracket can stand 20cm or more off the brickwork. A half lantern usually sits within 10cm, so it clears a door swing, a narrow side return or a path that people walk close to.

Where a half lantern earns its place

The three places it works hardest are a front door, a porch and a passage down the side of a house. In each of them the wall is close to where people walk. Anything that projects gets caught by shoulders, bags and wheelie bins. The flat back also suits a wall that is already busy, next to a door frame, a meter box or a downpipe, where there is no room to centre a deeper fitting. On a wide front elevation with space either side of the door, a full wall lantern still reads better.

Getting the size right

Measure the height of your door and take roughly a fifth of it as the height of the lantern, glass and cap included. On a standard 198cm door that lands near 30 to 40cm. Mount the centre of the lantern at about eye level, near 165cm from the ground, so the light falls on faces and door furniture rather than into eyes. If you are fitting a pair either side of a door, keep them the same height as each other and let the door decide, not the brickwork courses.

Weather rating and where it can go

Outdoors in Britain the rating to look for is IP44 or better. IP44 covers splashing from any direction, which is what a wall under an eave or a porch actually gets. If the wall is fully exposed and takes driving rain off open ground, look for IP54 or IP65. The rating describes the fitting as assembled, so a cracked seal or a missing gasket takes it back to nothing. Check the gasket sits flat when you close the glass after changing a bulb.

Bulbs, light and colour

Most half lanterns take an E27 or B22 bulb, so the light is yours to choose. For a door, a warm white around 2700K flatters brick and painted timber and does not make a visitor look ill. Keep the output modest. Around 400 to 700 lumens is plenty at head height, and more than that turns a porch into a forecourt. Where the fitting has the LED built in, the colour is fixed at manufacture, so read it before you buy rather than after.

Finishes that last outside

Black and graphite are the safe choices on a painted or rendered wall and they hide dirt between cleans. Bronze and weathered zinc sit better on stone and older brick, and they are meant to change with age rather than stay as they arrived. Copper does the same more visibly, going from bright to brown to green over several years. Powder coated aluminium is the workhorse for a British coast or a salted road, because it does not rust when the coating is chipped, unlike steel.

Fitting and getting back in

A half lantern fixes to a standard back box or straight to the wall with a gasket behind it. Bring the cable in from behind wherever you can, because a cable entering from below invites water down the sheath. Before you buy, look at how the fitting opens. Some hinge at the front for a bulb change with the fitting still on the wall, and some need the whole body off. On a two storey wall at ladder height, that difference decides whether you change a bulb yourself.