Cragside House in Northumberland, England, was the first building to be lit by electricity sourced from where?
Cragside Cragside Cragside is a Victorian country house near the town of Rothbury in Northumberland, England. It was the home of William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, founder of the Armstrong Whitworth armaments firm. An industrial magnate, scientist, philanthropist and inventor of the hydraulic crane and the Armstrong gun, Armstrong also displayed his inventiveness in the domestic sphere, making Cragside the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power. The entire estate was technologically advanced; the architect of the house, Richard Norman Shaw, wrote that it was equipped with "wonderful hydraulic machines that do all sorts of things". In
Cragside in 1880 by Joseph Swan's incandescent lamps in what Swan considered "the first proper installation" of electric lighting. Armstrong knew Swan well and had chaired the presentation of Swan's new lamps to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne. Historic England describes Cragside as the "first (house) in the world to be lit by electricity derived from water power". The use of electricity to run the house's appliances and internal systems made Cragside a pioneer of home automation; one of the first private residences to have a dishwasher, a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine, the conservators Sarah