Lighting the royal parks
Gas lights in Green Park
Gas street lights were an innovation in 1807. It comes as a surprise to find that they are still in use in London nearly two hundred years later.
Gas lighting in London now is associated with royalty and the royal parks. Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and most of the Royal Parks have gas lamps.
The first street in England to be lit by gas was Pall Mall in 1807. Within a few years many streets, shops and homes were lit by gas.
Each evening lamplighters walked the streets to light the lamps. The gas lights in the royal parks are historical relics. Now they rely on electric clocks and automatic ignition to come on each night.
Submitted by: Andrew Hunt, 20 January 2007
