Lava Lamp

The concept originated in the mid-1950s at the Queens Head pub in the New Forest village of Burley. While at the bar, Walker noticed an odd kitchen timer fashioned out of a glass cocktail shaker filled with two immiscible liquids. The device had been assembled by an inventor named Donald Dunnett, who had designed the immiscible fluids to rise when placed in boiling water to indicate when an egg was cooked. Walker recognized decorative potential in the underlying physics and resolved to adapt the concept into an illuminated household fixture.

Walker spent years refining the chemical formulation inside a garden workshop in Ringwood, Hampshire. He experimented with mixtures of insoluble paraffin wax, mineral oil, and carbon tetrachloride enclosed in water, adjusting the density so the wax rose when heated by an incandescent bulb and sank upon cooling. In 1963, Walker established the manufacturing company Crestworth to produce the fixture under the commercial name Astro Lamp, securing British and international patents including US Patent 3,570,156.

American entrepreneurs Adolph Wertheimer and Hy Spector later purchased the United States manufacturing rights after seeing the device at a German trade exhibition in 1965, launching it across North America under the name Lava Lite. The flowing visual effect became an international cultural staple through the late twentieth century, and the British enterprise continues production today under the brand name Mathmos.