The simplest way to light a dark corner without a socket is a cordless, rechargeable table lamp. It charges by USB-C like a phone, sits wherever the room needs it, and asks nothing of the walls.
Most homes have one of these corners. The armchair that never quite made it to the plug. The end of the hallway. The shelf that would look finished with a little light on it, if only there were somewhere to put a cable. For years the answer was an extension lead along the skirting, or simply living with the gloom. There is a better one.
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Why the corner is dark in the first place
Overhead lights are designed to light a whole room, and they do it badly. One bulb in the middle of the ceiling leaves the edges flat and the corners shadowed, and it flattens everything in between. Layering light sounds complicated and is not. It means several small, low sources around a room rather than one bright one above it.
The trouble is that small, low sources usually need sockets, and the sockets are wherever the electrician found it convenient decades ago. So the dark corner stays dark, because the fix has always meant a cable.
If the corner does have a socket, the honest answer is a proper floor lamp that washes the wall, set low and warm. Everything below is for the corners that do not.
What a cordless lamp actually is
A cordless table lamp is a small lamp with a battery inside it. You charge it from a USB-C cable, the same one that charges most phones and headphones now, and then you unplug it and carry it to wherever you like. When it runs down, you charge it again. There is no switch on a flex to hunt for in the dark; on several of ours you simply touch the base and it comes on.
They are light. The smallest of ours weighs around 226g, less than a bag of sugar, so moving one from the kitchen worktop to the bedside is nothing. And because there is no live cable, they are comfortable to leave on a low shelf, a windowsill or the middle of a laid table, where a wired lamp never could go.
Where they earn their place
The reading chair with no plug nearby is the obvious one. A cordless lamp on the side table beside it gives you a pool of light to read by, and lets you leave the big light off. The hallway is another. A lamp on the console by the front door means there is something warm to walk towards when you come in on a dark afternoon, without leaving a hall light burning all evening.
Bedsides are often worse than people admit. One socket, shared between a phone charger and a lamp, on one side of the bed only. A cordless lamp on the other side solves it without any rewiring. And the middle of a dining table, where candles need watching, takes a cordless lamp happily.
And a cordless lamp is not fixed. It can be a bedside light on Tuesday and a table light on Saturday, which in a small or rented flat is most of the point.
Above a picture or a shelf, a rechargeable picture light does the same job from the wall. It fixes on magnetically, charges by USB and runs from a small remote.
Choosing the right shape
Think about what you want the light to do, rather than what the lamp looks like switched off. A tall stem with a flat shade throws a neat circle of light downwards, which is why you see that shape on restaurant tables. It lights the table without lighting the room. A low dome or mushroom does something similar on a shelf or a worktop, casting a wide, soft glow rather than a bright point.
A fluted or ribbed shade is different again. The light comes through the shade itself, so it softens into a glow rather than a beam. That is the one for the corner you want to feel warm rather than lit, and for a bedside where the lowest setting matters. Our fluted lamps have three brightness settings, from a barely-there glow to enough to read by.
Then there is the lantern, a clear glass shade over a weighted base, with a handle to carry it by. From across a room the light inside reads as a flame. It belongs by a front door, or outside on a mild evening with a blanket.
A few honest notes
A cordless lamp will not light a room on its own. It lights a place within a room, and that is the point of it. If you need to read small print for hours, a proper reading lamp is still the right tool. Battery life depends on the brightness you choose, and a lamp on its lowest setting will run for far longer than one on its brightest. Like any rechargeable, it needs plugging in now and then, so keep the cable somewhere you will find it.
And if a lamp you already own sits by a socket, a pair of smart bulbs will make it dim, warm and on a timer, which gets you most of the way there without buying a lamp at all.
What we would choose
For the hallway console or the kitchen worktop, the Cordless Dome Table Lamp in brushed silver at £12.95 is where we would start. It is small, touch-controlled and throws its light down and outward, never into your eyes.
For a shelf or mantelpiece that needs a little warmth, the Cordless Mushroom Table Lamp in bronze, also £12.95, gives a low, wide glow that sits well against wood and linen.
For the dinner table, the Cordless Stem Table Lamp in brushed gold at £13.95 is the tall one, lighting the table properly without lighting the room.
For a bedside or a reading corner where the lowest light matters, the Fluted Cordless Table Lamp, Teardrop at £24.95 has three brightness settings and the most classically lamp-like shape of our six fluted designs.
For the front door, the Cordless Glass Lantern Lamp in antique brass at £34.95 has a carry handle and a weighted base, and looks like a lantern you never have to light.
All of them are in our Cordless Lamps collection, and UK standard delivery is free.