The UK is switching on to a future of home-grown, greener power — and yet this future is drawing on the past. Jonathan Lee revisits the renewable revolution that started right here.
Dazzlingly bright and dangerous, electric lamps flicker into life in a corner of Northumberland in 1878. These carbon arc lamps glare and fizz in the gallery at Cragside, built by William, 1st Baron Armstrong, and his wife, Margaret, and mark a brilliant new era: they are powered by…
