When artist Michael Bucknell was commissioned to design a chandelier themed on artefacts associated with Sherlock Holmes, he decided that the best way of creating a glow in the bowls of a number of pipes at the end of arms in the chandelier was to use optical fibre. An obvious advantage was that the eight pipes could all be illuminated by a single light source, reducing the total power consumption and making for easier installation. The metal halide light source has an extremely long bulb life.

6mm solid core light guide – more commonly used with downlight or spotlight fittings – was threaded through the hollow arms of the chandelier. This fibre type has good light-carrying capacity but is very flexible.